Configurable ic with routing circuits with offset connections

ABSTRACT

Some embodiments provide a configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) that includes several configurable tiles arranged in a tile arrangement. Each configurable tile has a set of configurable logic circuits and a set of configurable routing circuits for routing signals between configurable logic circuits. At least a first routing circuit of a first tile has at least one direct connection with a second circuit of a second tile that does not neighbor the first tile and that is not aligned horizontally or vertically with the first tile in the tile arrangement.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed towards configurable IC with routingcircuits with offset connections.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The use of configurable integrated circuits (“IC's”) has dramaticallyincreased in recent years. One example of a configurable IC is a fieldprogrammable gate array (“FPGA”). An FPGA is a field programmable ICthat usually has logic circuits, interconnect circuits, and input/output(i/o) circuits. The logic circuits (also called logic blocks) aretypically arranged as an internal array of circuits. These logiccircuits are connected together through numerous interconnect circuits(also called interconnects). The logic and interconnect circuits aretypically surrounded by the I/O circuits.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a configurable logic circuit 100. Thislogic circuit can be configured to perform a number of differentfunctions. As shown in FIG. 1, the logic circuit 100 receives a set ofinput data 105 and a set of configuration data 110. The configurationdata set can be stored in a set of SRAM cells 115. From the set offunctions that the logic circuit 100 can perform, the configuration dataset specifies a particular function that this circuit is to perform onthe input data set. Once the logic circuit performs its function on theinput data set, it provides the output of this function on a set ofoutput lines 120. The logic circuit 100 is said to be configurable, asthe configuration data set “configures” the logic circuit to perform aparticular function, and this configuration data set can be modified bywriting new data in the SRAM cells. Multiplexers and look-up tables aretwo examples of configurable logic circuits.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a configurable interconnect circuit200. This interconnect circuit 200 connects a set of input data 205 to aset of output data 210. This circuit receives configuration data bits215 that are stored in a set of SRAM cells 220. The configuration bitsspecify how the interconnect circuit should connect the input data setto the output data set. The interconnect circuit 200 is said to beconfigurable, as the configuration data set “configures” theinterconnect circuit to use a particular connection scheme that connectsthe input data set to the output data set in a desired manner. Moreover,this configuration data set can be modified by writing new data in theSRAM cells. Multiplexers are one example of interconnect circuits.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portion of a prior art configurable IC 300. Asshown in this figure, the IC 300 includes an array of configurable logiccircuits 305 and configurable interconnect circuits 310. The IC 300 hastwo types of interconnect circuits 310 a and 310 b. Interconnectcircuits 310 a connect interconnect circuits 310 b and logic circuits305, while interconnect circuits 310 b connect interconnect circuits 310a to other interconnect circuits 310 a. In some cases, the IC 300includes hundreds or thousands of logic circuits 305 and interconnectcircuits 310.

In some configurable IC architectures, an interconnect circuit 310 b canconnect to interconnect circuits 310 b that are several columns orseveral rows away from it in the array. FIG. 4 illustrates several suchconnections in a prior configurable IC architecture 400. In thearchitecture 400, each logic circuit 305 forms a configurablecomputational tile 405 in conjunction with two neighboring interconnectcircuits 310 a and one neighboring interconnect circuit 310 b. In eachparticular tile, each interconnect circuit 310 a can receive inputs fromthe interconnect circuit 310 b in the tile and supply a sub-set of thereceived input signals (e.g., one input signal) to the logic circuit 305of the tile.

The interconnect circuits 310 b in each particular tile serve asswitchboxes that connect to other interconnect circuits 310 b throughintervening interconnect circuits 310 a. As shown in FIG. 4, theseswitchboxes 310 b can also connect to other switchboxes 310 b that aretwo or more rows or columns away but in the same column or row. Forinstance, each switchbox can connect to switchboxes that are one, two,three and six rows above and below it, and to switchboxes that are one,two, three, and six columns to its right and left.

In the architecture of FIG. 4, a particular logic circuit 305 connectsto logic circuits that are in the four tiles that are diagonallyadjacent to the particular logic circuit's tile, through four connectionboxes 310 a in these tiles. For instance, FIG. 4 illustrates that thelogic circuit 305 in tile 405 a connects to the logic circuits 305 intiles 405 b-e through a connection box 310 a in these tiles.

The advantage of the connection architecture illustrated in FIG. 4 isthat it allows one computation tile to connect to another computationaltile that is not a neighboring tile. On the other hand, thisarchitecture requires the use of multiple connections to connect twotiles that are not diagonally adjacent and that are in two differentrows and columns. This requirement makes the connection architectureillustrated in FIG. 4 inefficient and expensive as each connectionrequires the use of transistor switching logic.

Also, the connection architecture illustrated in FIG. 4 employs the sameset of long connection schemes for each tile. Hence, as shown in FIG. 5,this architecture can result in a loop between two tiles 505 and 510 inthe same column, or two tiles 515 and 520 in the same row. Such cyclesare undesirable as they come at the expense of reachability of othertiles. The uniform connection architecture of FIG. 4 is also inefficientas it provides more ways than necessary for reaching one tile fromanother tile. This redundancy is illustrated in FIG. 5, whichillustrates that the tile 525 can connect to tile 530 through twodifferent sets of connections, one that goes through tile 535 and onethat goes through tile 540. This redundancy is undesirable as it comesat the expense of reachability of other tiles.

Therefore, there is a need in the art for a configurable IC that has awiring architecture that increases the interconnectivity between itsconfigurable circuits.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Some embodiments of the invention provide architectures for configurableIC's that have configurable computational units (e.g., configurablelogic circuits) and configurable routing circuits for configurablyrouting signals between the configurable computational units. Forinstance, some embodiments provide a configurable IC that includesnumerous configurable computational tiles (e.g., hundreds, thousands,hundreds of thousands, etc. of tiles) that are laid out on the ICaccording to a particular arrangement. In some embodiments, theconfigurable computational tiles include configurable logic circuits andconfigurable interconnect circuits. In other embodiments, the onlyconfigurable circuits in the configurable computational tiles areconfigurable logic circuits or configurable interconnect circuits.

The computational tiles in some embodiments are arranged in numerousrows and columns that form a tile array. Also, the tile arrangement insome embodiments result in one or more sets of the configurable circuits(e.g., the configurable logic circuits and/or configurable interconnectcircuits) being arranged in an array with several aligned rows andcolumns. Alternatively, some embodiments might organize the configurablecircuits in an arrangement that is not an array.

Accordingly, instead of referring to configurable circuit arrays orconfigurable tile arrays, the discussion below refers to configurablecircuit arrangements and configurable tile arrangements. Somearrangements may have configurable circuits or tiles arranged in one ormore arrays, while other arrangements may not have the configurablecircuits or tiles arranged in an array. In the tile or circuitarrangement, some embodiments intersperse several other circuits, suchas memory blocks, processors, macro blocks, IP blocks, SERDEScontrollers, clock management units, etc. Alternatively, someembodiments arrange some of these other circuits (e.g., memory blocks)within the tile structure.

Each computation tile in some embodiments includes a set of configurablelogic circuits and a set of configurable routing circuits (also calledconfigurable routing fabric or resources). In some embodiments, theconfigurable logic circuits in each computational tile includes a set ofconfigurable logic circuits and a set of input select interconnectcircuits associated with the configurable logic circuits.

In some embodiments, each routing interconnect circuit can receiveseveral input signals and distribute output signals to several differenttypes of circuits, such as input select interconnect(s) of the samecomputational tile, or routing and input-select interconnects of othertiles. In some embodiments, at least one routing interconnect of aparticular computational tile can receive signals from and supplysignals to only circuits outside of the particular tile. In someembodiments, one routing interconnect in a particular computational tileis not connected to any other circuits in its own tile or in any tilethat neighbors its own tile. Also, routing interconnects can have fanout greater than one in some embodiments.

Alternatively, in some embodiments, the input select interconnects of acomputational tile supply their output signals to only the logiccircuits of the particular tile. Specifically, each input selectinterconnect of these embodiments receives input signals for at leastone logic circuit and supplies a sub-set of the received inputs to theparticular logic circuit set. In some of these embodiments, each inputselect interconnect of a computational tile provides its output to onlyone logic circuit (i.e., each such input select interconnect has a fanout of one).

In some embodiments, one or more input select interconnects of aparticular computational tile directly receives input from one or morecircuits outside of the particular tile. As further described below, adirect connection between two circuits is an electrical connectionbetween the two circuits that is achieved by (1) a set of wire segmentsthat traverse through a set of the wiring layers of the IC, and (2) aset of vias when two or more wiring layers are involved. In someembodiments, a direct connection between two circuits might also includea set of buffer circuits.

Through its direct connections with circuits outside of its particularcomputational tile, a particular computational tile's input selectinterconnects can receive input signals from the circuits outside of theparticular tile, and pass a set of these received signals to a logiccircuit in the particular computational tile. In some of theseembodiments, the particular computational tile's input selectinterconnects have direct connections with circuits in tiles that areseveral tiles away from the particular tile. In some of theseembodiments, one or more of these other tiles are not vertically orhorizontally aligned with the particular computational tile in the tilearrangement. In other words, some embodiments have several long directoffset connections for connecting the inputs of some input selectinterconnects with circuits that are in computational tiles that areoffset from the particular computational tile by several rows and/orcolumns.

Some embodiments also have several offset connections betweeninterconnects in different computational tiles. For instance, in someembodiments, the output of a routing interconnect in a particularcomputational tile can be supplied through an offset connection to theinput of the routing interconnect of another computational tile. Such anoffset connect can also be used to provide the output of a routinginterconnect in one computational tile to the input select interconnectin another computational tile. Some embodiments use long offsetconnections to connect two interconnects that are neither in neighboringcomputational tiles, nor in vertically or horizontally alignedcomputational tiles. Some embodiments also use a long offset connectionto provide the output of logic circuits to circuits that are in offsetcomputational tiles that do not neighbor the computational tiles of thelogic circuits.

The use of direct offset connections in the configurable IC of someembodiments increases the interconnectivity between the circuits of theconfigurable IC. In addition to computational tiles, some embodimentsinclude other types of tiles (e.g., tiles that embed memory arrays). Insome embodiments, these other tiles connect to each other and/or tocomputational tiles in the same manner as was described above forconnections between computational tiles. The configurable IC of someembodiments is a reconfigurable IC. In some of these embodiments, thereconfigurable IC is a sub-cycle reconfigurable IC.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The novel features of the invention are set forth in the appendedclaims. However, for purpose of explanation, several embodiments of theinvention are set forth in the following figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a configurable logic circuit.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a configurable interconnect circuit.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portion of a prior art configurable IC.

FIG. 4 illustrates several connections in a prior configurable ICarchitecture.

FIG. 5 illustrates an IC architecture that results in a loop between twotiles in the same column, or two tiles in the same row.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a direct connection where all the wiresegments that establish a direct connection are on the same layer.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a direct connection where theconnecting wire segments and the terminals of the connected circuits areall on the same layer.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a direct connection where the set ofwire segments that establish the direct connection between two circuitsare on several wiring layers.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of a direct connection between twocircuits established by one or more diagonal wire segments possibly inconjunction with one or more Manhattan (i.e., horizontal or vertical)segments.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of using one buffer circuit in the directconnection between circuits.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of using two buffer circuits in thedirect connection between circuits.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of a configurable logic circuit that canperform a set of functions.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example of a configurable interconnect circuit.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example of a sub-cycle reconfigurable IC.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example of a reconfigurable logic circuit.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example of a reconfigurable interconnect circuit.

FIG. 17 illustrates an IC architecture that is formed by numerousrectangular configurable tiles that are arranged in an array withmultiple rows and columns.

FIG. 18 illustrates a first input select multiplexer connected to fourneighboring LUT's, two offset LUT's, and two offset routingmultiplexers.

FIG. 19 illustrates a second input select multiplexer connected to fourneighboring offset LUT's, two other offset LUT's, and two offset routingmultiplexers.

FIG. 20 illustrates a third input select multiplexer connected to eightneighboring offset LUT's.

FIG. 21 illustrates a first routing multiplexer connected to fourneighboring LUT's and to four horizontally or vertically aligned routingmultiplexers.

FIG. 22 illustrates a second routing multiplexer connects to the fourLUT's and to four horizontally or vertically aligned routingmultiplexers.

FIG. 23 illustrates an example of an architecture that is asymmetricwith respect to the inputs of the routing interconnects.

FIG. 24 illustrates a set of Boolean gates that compute two functionsbased on a set of inputs.

FIG. 25 illustrates the design of FIG. 24 after its gates have beenplaced into four groups.

FIG. 26 illustrates another representation of the design of FIG. 24.

FIG. 27 illustrates a circuit representation of an interconnect/storagecircuit that can be used to implement the routing multiplexer of someembodiments.

FIG. 28 illustrates an HUMUX that includes two two-to-one multiplexers,a four-to-one multiplexer, a set of input terminals, an output terminal,and a set of select terminals.

FIG. 29 illustrates a portion of the architecture of a configurable IC.

FIG. 30 illustrates a portion of the actual physical architecture of theconfigurable IC.

FIG. 31 illustrates an aligned tile layout, which is formed by fourtiles that are aligned in the physical architecture.

FIG. 32 illustrates a logic carry block (LCB) that is formed by athree-input LUT and its associated carry logic circuit.

FIG. 33 illustrates an alternative carry-signal flow through four,aligned LCB's.

FIG. 34 illustrates two fast nibble wide adders/subtractors that are onthe same topological row ganged to form a fast byte-wideadder/subtractor.

FIG. 35 illustrates an aligned layout that includes one common carrychain that is shared among the four logic circuits in the tile layout.

FIG. 36 illustrates a bypass circuitry to bypass the shared carry logicto further speed the carry logic circuitry for largeradders/subtractors.

FIG. 37 illustrates an example of a three-input LUT.

FIG. 38 illustrates a three-input LUT that is an optimized version ofthe LUT of FIG. 37.

FIG. 39 illustrates a CPL-implementation of a four-stage Manchestercarry chain that can serve as the shared carry logic of FIG. 36.

FIG. 40 illustrates a tile group that includes two carry chains, aleft-to-right carry chain and a right-to-left carry chain.

FIG. 41 illustrates a tile layout that includes two Manchester carrylogics, two routing multiplexers, and two sets of carry in and outsignals.

FIG. 42 illustrates one manner of embedding a memory in the layout ofthe tile group of FIG. 40.

FIG. 43 illustrates a physical layout for embedding a memory in analigned tile group, which is formed by four tiles that are aligned witheach other in a manner similar to the aligned tile groups of FIGS. 31and 41.

FIG. 44 illustrates an architecture that includes address and datasignals for a memory that come from several groups of tiles.

FIG. 45 illustrates a manner for establishing the dual-portedarchitecture of FIG. 43.

FIG. 46 illustrates a portion of a configurable IC.

FIG. 47 illustrates a more detailed example of a configuration data poolfor the configurable IC.

FIG. 48 illustrates a system on chip (“SoC”) implementation of aconfigurable IC.

FIG. 49 illustrates a system in package (“SiP”) implementation for aconfigurable IC.

FIG. 50 illustrates a more detailed example of a computing system thathas a configurable IC.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following description, numerous details are set forth for purposeof explanation. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will realizethat the invention may be practiced without the use of these specificdetails. For instance, not all embodiments of the invention need to bepracticed with the specific number of bits and/or specific devices(e.g., multiplexers) referred to below. In other instances, well-knownstructures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order not toobscure the description of the invention with unnecessary detail.

Some embodiments of the invention provide architectures for configurableIC's that have configurable computational units (e.g., configurablelogic circuits) and configurable routing circuits for configurablyrouting signals between the configurable computational units. Forinstance, some embodiments provide a configurable IC that includesnumerous configurable computational tiles (e.g., hundreds, thousands,hundreds of thousands, etc. of tiles) that are laid out on the ICaccording to a particular arrangement. In some embodiments, theconfigurable computational tiles include configurable logic circuits andconfigurable interconnect circuits. In other embodiments, the onlyconfigurable circuits in the configurable computational tiles areconfigurable logic circuits or configurable interconnect circuits.

The computational tiles in some embodiments are arranged in numerousrows and columns that form a tile array. Also, the tile arrangement insome embodiments result in one or more sets of the configurable circuits(e.g., the configurable logic circuits and/or configurable interconnectcircuits) being arranged in an array with several aligned rows andcolumns. Alternatively, some embodiments might organize the configurablecircuits in an arrangement that is not an array.

Accordingly, instead of referring to configurable circuit arrays orconfigurable tile arrays, the discussion below refers to configurablecircuit arrangements and configurable tile arrangements. Somearrangements may have configurable circuits or tiles arranged in one ormore arrays, while other arrangements may not have the configurablecircuits or tiles arranged in an array. In the tile or circuitarrangement, some embodiments intersperse several other circuits, suchas memory blocks, processors, macro blocks, IP blocks, SERDEScontrollers, clock management units, etc. Alternatively, someembodiments arrange some of these other circuits (e.g., memory blocks)within the tile structure.

Each computation tile in some embodiments includes a set of configurablelogic circuits and a set of configurable routing circuits (also calledconfigurable routing fabric or resources). In some embodiments, the setof configurable logic circuits in each computational tile includes a setof input select interconnect circuits associated with the set ofconfigurable logic circuits.

In some embodiments, each routing interconnect circuit can receiveseveral input signals and distribute output signals to several differenttypes of circuits, such as input select interconnect(s) of the samecomputational tile, or routing and input-select interconnects of othertiles. In some embodiments, at least one routing interconnect of aparticular computational tile can receive signals from, and supplysignals to, only circuits outside of the particular tile. In someembodiments, one routing interconnect in a particular computational tileis not connected to any other circuit in its own tile or in any tilethat neighbors its own tile. Also, routing interconnects can have fanout greater than one in some embodiments.

Alternatively, in some embodiments, the input select interconnects of acomputational tile supply their output signals to only the logiccircuits of the particular tile. Specifically, each input selectinterconnect of these embodiments receives input signals for at leastone logic circuit and supplies a sub-set of the received inputs to theparticular logic circuit set. In some of these embodiments, each inputselect interconnect of a computational tile provides its output to onlyone logic circuit (i.e., each such input select interconnect has a fanout of one).

In some embodiments, one or more input select interconnects of aparticular computational tile directly receives input from one or morecircuits outside of the particular tile. As further described below, adirect connection between two circuits is an electrical connectionbetween the two circuits that is achieved by (1) a set of wire segmentsthat traverse through a set of the wiring layers of the IC, and (2) aset of vias when two or more wiring layers are involved. In someembodiments, a direct connection between two circuits might also includea set of buffer circuits.

Through its direct connections with circuits outside of its particularcomputational tile, a particular computational tile's input selectinterconnects can receive input signals from the circuits outside of theparticular tile, and pass a set of these received signals to a logiccircuit in the particular computational tile. In some of theseembodiments, the particular computational tile's input selectinterconnects have direct connections with circuits in tiles that areseveral tiles away from the particular tile. In some of theseembodiments, one or more of these other tiles are not vertically orhorizontally aligned with the particular computational tile in the tilearrangement. In other words, some embodiments have several long directoffset connections for connecting the inputs of some input selectinterconnects with circuits that are in computational tiles that areoffset from the particular computational tile by several rows and/orcolumns.

Some embodiments also have several offset connections betweeninterconnects in different computational tiles. For instance, in someembodiments, the output of a routing interconnect in a particularcomputational tile can be supplied through an offset connection to theinput of the routing interconnect of another computational tile. Such anoffset connect can also be used to provide the output of a routinginterconnect in one computational tile to the input select interconnectin another computational tile. Some embodiments use long offsetconnections to connect two interconnects that are neither in neighboringcomputational tiles, nor in vertically or horizontally alignedcomputational tiles. Some embodiments also use a long offset connectionto provide the output of logic circuits to circuits that are in offsetcomputational tiles that do not neighbor the computational tiles of thelogic circuits.

The use of direct offset connections in the configurable IC of someembodiments increases the interconnectivity between the circuits of theconfigurable IC. In addition to computational tiles, some embodimentsinclude other types of tiles (e.g., tiles that embed memory arrays) thatdo not include some or all of the circuits of a computational tile. Insome embodiments, these other tiles connect to each other and/or tocomputational tiles in the same manner as was described above forconnections between computational tiles. The configurable IC of someembodiments is a reconfigurable IC. In some of these embodiments, thereconfigurable IC is a sub-cycle reconfigurable IC.

Several more detailed embodiments of the invention are described inSections II-X of the detailed description. However, before thisdescription, several terms and concepts are discussed in Section I.

I. Terms and Concepts

A. Direct Connections Between Circuits

Several figures below illustrate several direct connections betweencircuits in a configurable circuit arrangement. A direct connectionbetween two circuits in an arrangement is an electrical connectionbetween the two circuits that is achieved by (1) a set of wire segmentsthat traverse through a set of the wiring layers of the IC, and (2) aset of vias when two or more wiring layers are involved.

FIGS. 6-9 illustrate several examples of direct connections between twocircuits. These examples illustrate actual geometric realization of thedirect connections. FIG. 6 illustrates a case where all the wiresegments that establish a direct connection are on the same layer.Specifically, this figure illustrates four wire segments 620, 625, 630,and 635 that establish the direct connection between circuits 605 and610, which are offset in the circuit arrangement of a configurable IC.These four segments might be on a layer (e.g., the second wiring layer)that is different from the layer (e.g., the first wiring layer) that hasthe input/output terminals 615 and 640 of the circuits 605 and 610.Hence, in these cases, the direct connection between the circuits 605and 610 also require a set of vias 645 and 650 to connect the wiresegments 620 and 635 to the terminals 615 and 640.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example were the connecting wire segments 715 andthe terminals of the connected circuits 705 and 710 are all on the samelayer. Alternatively, FIG. 8 illustrates a case where the set of wiresegments that establish a direct connection between two circuits are onseveral wiring layers. In this example, a direct connection isestablished between the two circuits 805 and 810 by (1) a verticalsegment 825 (e.g., a segment in the y-direction on layer 2) thatconnects to a horizontal terminal 815 (e.g., a segment in thex-direction on layer 1) of the circuit 805 through a via connection 820,and (2) a horizontal segment 835 (on layer 3) that connects to avertical terminal 845 (on layer 1) of the circuit 810 through a stackedvia connection 840. The horizontal segment 835 also connects to thevertical segment 825 through a via connection 830.

When the IC uses a wiring model that allows occasional or systematicdiagonal wiring, a direct connection between two circuits can beestablished by one or more diagonal wire segments possibly inconjunction with one or more Manhattan (i.e., horizontal or vertical)segments. FIG. 9 illustrates an example of such a direct connection.Specifically, this figure illustrates a 60° diagonal segment 925 (e.g.,on a third wiring layer) that connects to the vertical terminal 915 (onlayer 1) of circuit 905 and the vertical terminal 935 (on layer 1) ofcircuit 910 through stacked via connections 920 and 930.

The direct connection illustrated in FIGS. 7-9 are examples of built-inturns used by some embodiments of the invention. Built-in turns allowtwo offset circuits to be connected by relying on wiring architecturethat reduces the number of interconnect circuits necessary forestablishing the connection between the two circuits. Built-in turns arefurther described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/882,845,entitled “Configurable Integrated Circuit with Built-In Turns”, andfiled Jun. 30, 2004.

In some embodiments, a direct connection between two circuits in anarrangement might also include a set of buffer circuits in some cases.In other words, two circuits are connected in some embodiments by a setof wire segments that possibly traverse through a set of buffer circuitsand a set of vias. Buffer circuits are not interconnect circuits orconfigurable logic circuits. In some embodiments, buffer circuits arepart of some or all connections. Buffer circuits might be used toachieve one or more objectives (e.g., maintain the signal strength,reduce noise, alter signal delay, etc.) along the wire segments thatestablish the direct connections. Inverting buffer circuits may alsoallow an IC design to reconfigure logic circuits less frequently and/oruse fewer types of logic circuits. In some embodiments, buffer circuitsare formed by one or more inverters (e.g., two or more inverters thatare connected in series). FIGS. 10 and 11 illustrate examples of usingone or two buffer circuits 1005 and 1105 in the direct connectionbetween circuits 605 and 610 of FIG. 6.

Alternatively, the intermediate buffer circuits between the logic and/orinterconnect circuits can be viewed as a part of the devices illustratedin these figures. For instance, the inverters that can be placed afterthe devices 605 and 610 can be viewed as being part of these devices.Some embodiments use such inverters in order to allow an IC design toreconfigure logic circuits less frequently and/or use fewer types oflogic circuits.

Several figures below “topologically” illustrate several directconnections between circuits in an arrangement. A topologicalillustration is an illustration that is only meant to show a directconnection between two circuits without specifying a particulargeometric layout for the wire segments that establish the directconnection.

B. Configurable and Reconfigurable IC's

A configurable IC is an IC that has configurable circuits. In someembodiments, a configurable IC includes configurable computationalcircuits (e.g., configurable logic circuits) and configurable routingcircuits for routing the signals to and from the configurablecomputation units. In addition to configurable circuits, a configurableIC also typically includes non-configurable circuits (e.g.,non-configurable logic circuits, interconnect circuits, memories, etc.).

A configurable circuit is a circuit that can “configurably” perform aset of operations. Specifically, a configurable circuit receives“configuration data” that specifies the operation that the configurablecircuit has to perform in the set of operations that it can perform. Insome embodiments, configuration data is generated outside of theconfigurable IC. In these embodiments, a set of software tools typicallyconverts a high-level IC design (e.g., a circuit representation or ahardware description language design) into a set of configuration datathat can configure the configurable IC (or more accurately, theconfigurable IC's configurable circuits) to implement the IC design.

Examples of configurable circuits include configurable interconnectcircuits and configurable logic circuits. A logic circuit is a circuitthat can perform a function on a set of input data that it receives. Aconfigurable logic circuit is a logic circuit that can be configured toperform different functions on its input data set.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example of a configurable logic circuit 1200 thatcan perform a set of functions. As shown in this figure, the logiccircuit 1200 has a set of input terminals 1205, a set of outputterminals 1210, and a set of configuration terminals 1215. The logiccircuit 1200 receives a set of configuration data along itsconfiguration terminals 1215. Based on the configuration data, the logiccircuit performs a particular function within its set of functions onthe input data that it receives along its input terminals 1205. Thelogic circuit then outputs the result of this function as a set ofoutput data along its output terminal set 1210. The logic circuit 1200is said to be configurable as the configuration data set “configures”the logic circuit to perform a particular function.

A configurable interconnect circuit is a circuit that can configurablyconnect an input set to an output set in a variety of ways. FIG. 13illustrates an example of a configurable interconnect circuit 1300. Thisinterconnect circuit 1300 connects a set of input terminals 1305 to aset of output terminals 1310, based on a set of configuration data 1315that the interconnect circuit receives. In other words, theconfiguration data specify how the interconnect circuit should connectthe input terminal set 1305 to the output terminal set 1310. Theinterconnect circuit 1300 is said to be configurable as theconfiguration data set “configures” the interconnect circuit to use aparticular connection scheme that connects the input terminal set to theoutput terminal set in a desired manner.

An interconnect circuit can connect two terminals or pass a signal fromone terminal to another by establishing an electrical path between theterminals. Alternatively, an interconnect circuit can establish aconnection or pass a signal between two terminals by having the value ofa signal that appears at one terminal appear at the other terminal. Inconnecting two terminals or passing a signal between two terminals, aninterconnect circuit in some embodiments might invert the signal (i.e.,might have the signal appearing at one terminal inverted by the time itappears at the other terminal). In other words, the interconnect circuitof some embodiments implements a logic inversion operation inconjunction to its connection operation. Other embodiments, however, donot build such an inversion operation in some or all of theirinterconnect circuits.

Reconfigurable IC's are one type of configurable IC's. Specifically,reconfigurable IC's are configurable IC's that can reconfigure duringruntime. FIG. 14 conceptually illustrates an example of a sub-cyclereconfigurable IC (i.e., an IC that is reconfigurable on a sub-cyclebasis). In this example, the sub-cycle reconfigurable IC implements anIC design 1405 that operates at a clock speed of X MHz. Typically, an ICdesign is initially specified in a hardware description language (HDL),and a synthesis operation is used to convert this HDL representationinto a circuit representation. After the synthesis operation, the ICdesign includes numerous electronic circuits, which are referred tobelow as “components.” As further illustrated FIG. 14, the operationsperformed by the components in the IC design 1405 can be partitionedinto four sets of operations 1410-1425, with each set of operationsbeing performed at a clock speed of X MHz.

FIG. 14 then illustrates that these four sets of operations 1410-1425can be performed by one sub-cycle reconfigurable IC 1430 that operatesat 4X MHz. In some embodiments, four cycles of the 4X MHz clockcorrespond to four sub-cycles within a cycle of the X MHz clock.Accordingly, this figure illustrates the reconfigurable IC 1430reconfiguring four times during four cycles of the 4X MHz clock (i.e.,during four sub-cycles of the X MHz clock). During each of thesereconfigurations (i.e., during each sub-cycle), the reconfigurable IC1430 performs one of the identified four sets of operations. In otherwords, the faster operational speed of the reconfigurable IC 1430 allowsthis IC to reconfigure four times during each cycle of the X MHz clock,in order to perform the four sets of operations sequentially at a 4X MHzrate instead of performing the four sets of operations in parallel at anX MHz rate.

A reconfigurable IC typically includes reconfigurable logic circuitsand/or reconfigurable interconnect circuits, where the reconfigurablelogic and/or interconnect circuits are configurable logic and/orinterconnect circuits that can “reconfigure” more than once at runtime.A configurable logic or interconnect circuit reconfigures when it basesits operation on a different set of configuration data.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example of a reconfigurable logic circuit 1500.This logic circuit includes a core logic circuit 1505 that can perform avariety of functions on a set of input data 1510 that it receives. Thecore logic circuit 1505 also receives a set of four configuration databits 1515 through a switching circuit 1520, which in this case is formedby four four-to-one multiplexers 1540. The switching circuit receives alarger set of sixteen configuration data bits 1525 that, in some cases,are stored in a set of storage elements 1530 (e.g., a set of memorycells, such as SRAM cells). This switching circuit is controlled by atwo-bit reconfiguration signal φ through two select lines 1555. Wheneverthe reconfiguration signal changes, the switching circuit supplies adifferent set of four configuration data bits to the core logic circuit1505. The configuration data bits then determine the function that thelogic circuit 1505 performs on its input data. The core logic circuit1505 then outputs the result of this function on the output terminal set1545.

Any number of known logic circuits (also called logic blocks) can beused in conjunction with the invention. Examples of such known logiccircuits include look-up tables (LUT's), universal logic modules(ULM's), sub-ULM's, multiplexers, and PAL's/PLA's. In addition, logiccircuits can be complex logic circuits formed by multiple logic andinterconnect circuits. Examples of simple and complex logic circuits canbe found in Architecture and CAD for Deep-Submicron FPGAs, Betz, et al.,ISBN 0792384601, 1999; and in Design of Interconnection Networks forProgrammable Logic, Lemieux, et al., ISBN 1-4020-7700-9, 2003. Otherexamples of reconfigurable logic circuits are provided in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 10/882,583, entitled “Configurable Circuits, IC's,and Systems,” filed on Jun. 30, 2004. This application is incorporatedin the present application by reference.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example of a reconfigurable interconnect circuit1600. This interconnect circuit includes a core interconnect circuit1605 that connects input data terminals 1610 to an output data terminalset 1615 based on a configuration data set 1620 that it receives from aswitching circuit 1625, which in this example is formed by two four toone multiplexers 1640. The switching circuit 1625 receives a larger setof configuration data bits 1630 that, in some embodiments, are stored ina set of storage elements 1635 (e.g., a set of memory cells, such asSRAM cells). This switching circuit is controlled by a two-bitreconfiguration signal φ through two select lines 1655. Whenever thereconfiguration signal changes, the switching circuit supplies adifferent set of two configuration data bits to the core interconnectcircuit 1605. The configuration data bits then determine the connectionscheme that the interconnect circuit 1605 uses to connect the input andoutput terminals 1610 and 1615.

Any number of known interconnect circuits (also called interconnects orprogrammable interconnects) can be used in conjunction with theinvention. Examples of such interconnect circuits include switch boxes,connection boxes, switching or routing matrices, full- or partial-crossbars, etc. Such interconnects can be implemented by using a variety ofknown techniques and structures. Examples of interconnect circuits canbe found in Architecture and CAD for Deep-Submicron FPGAs, Betz, et al.,ISBN 0792384601, 1999, and in Design of Interconnection Networks forProgrammable Logic, Lemieux, et al., ISBN 1-4020-7700-9, 2003. Otherexamples of reconfigurable interconnect circuits are provided in theU.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/882,583.

As mentioned above, the logic and interconnect circuits 1500 and 1600each receive a reconfiguration signal φ. In some embodiments, thissignal is a sub-cycle signal that allows the circuits 1500 and 1600 toreconfigure on a sub-cycle basis; i.e., to reconfigure one or more timeswithin a cycle of a primary clock. The primary clock might be a designclock that is specified by a design (e.g., it is specified by the designin the RTL or a hardware description language (HDL)), or an interfaceclock that defines an i/o rate.

Several novel techniques for distributing reconfiguration clockingsignals φ are described in U.S. patent application entitled“Configurable IC with Interconnect Circuits that also Perform StorageOperations”, which is filed concurrently with the present application,with attorney docket number TBUL.P0022. This application is incorporatedherein by reference. In conjunction with these clock distributiontechniques, this application discloses several novel circuits forsupplying configuration data to configurable circuits on a sub-cyclebasis, based on the distributed clock signals.

II. Configurable IC Architecture with Long Offset Direct Connections

FIGS. 17-22 illustrate one example of the invention's architecture for aconfigurable or reconfigurable IC. As shown in FIG. 17, thisarchitecture is formed by numerous rectangular configurable tiles 1705that are arranged in an array with multiple rows and columns. One ofordinary skill will realize that in other embodiments the tiles can havedifferent shapes and can arranged the configurable tiles in otherarrangements (e.g., the tiles might not have rectangular shapes in someembodiments).

In FIGS. 17-22, each configurable tile includes a three-input logiccircuit 1710, three input-select interconnects 1715, 1720, and 1725, andtwo routing interconnects 1730 and 1735. As further described below,other configurable tiles can include other types of circuits, such asmemory arrays instead of logic circuits.

In the arrangement 1700 of FIG. 17, the logic circuit 1710 in each tileis a LUT, and the interconnect circuits are multiplexers. Otherembodiments, however, might use other logic and/or interconnect circuitsinstead of or in conjunction with the LUT's and multiplexers. Aninput-select interconnect in some embodiments is an interconnect thathas a fan out of one (i.e., its output is only provided to one circuit).In the arrangement 1700, a particular tile's input-select multiplexer(IMUX) is a multiplexer that supplies one input signal of thethree-input LUT 1710 in the particular tile. In other words, in thearrangement 1700, an input select multiplexer receives several inputsignals for the LUT 1710 in its tile, and passes one of these inputsignals to its LUT.

A routing multiplexer (RMUX) in the arrangement 1700 is an interconnectcircuit that can receive signals from and supply signals to interconnectand logic circuits in other tiles in the arrangement. Unlike an inputselect multiplexer that only provides its output to a single logiccircuit (i.e., that only has a fan out of one), a routing multiplexer insome embodiments either provides its output to several logic and/orinterconnect circuits (i.e., has a fan out greater than one), orprovides its output to other interconnect circuits.

The arrangement 1700 of FIG. 17 includes numerous long offset directconnections that allow an input-select or routing multiplexer in aparticular tile to receive directly signals from a routing multiplexeror a logic circuit of another tile that (1) is not a neighbor of theparticular tile, and (2) is not in the same row or column in thearrangement 1700 as the particular tile. Each such direct connectionprovides the output of a routing multiplexer or logic circuit in a firstparticular tile to a multiplexer (IMUX or RMUX) of a second particulartile that is separated from the first particular tile in the arrayeither (1) by more than one row and at least one column, or (2) by morethan one column and at least one row.

For the arrangement 1700, FIGS. 18-22 illustrate one example of a directconnection scheme with numerous such direct long offset directconnections. This direct connection scheme is shown for connecting themultiplexers of one tile with the LUT's and multiplexers of other tiles.This same direct connection scheme can be used for all tiles in thearray, with the exception the certain provisions need to be made fortiles on or close to the boundary of the array.

FIG. 18 illustrates that the first input select multiplexer 1715connects to four neighboring LUT's 1805, 1810, 1815, and 1820, twooffset LUT's 1825 and 1830, and two offset routing multiplexers 1835 and1840. FIG. 19 illustrates that the second input select multiplexer 1720connects to four neighboring offset LUT's 1905, 1910, 1915, and 1920,two other offset LUT's 1925 and 1930, and two offset routingmultiplexers 1935 and 1940.

FIG. 20 illustrates that the third input select multiplexer 1725connects to eight neighboring offset LUT's 2005-2040. FIG. 21illustrates that the first routing multiplexer 1730 connects to the fourneighboring LUT's 1905, 1910, 1915, and 1920 and to four horizontally orvertically aligned routing multiplexers 2105, 2110, 2115, and 2120. FIG.22 illustrates that the second routing multiplexer 1735 connects to thefour LUT's 2205, 2210, 2215, and 2220 and to four horizontally orvertically aligned routing multiplexers 2225, 2230, 2235, and 2240.

In the architecture illustrated in FIGS. 17-22, each tile includes onethree-input LUT, three input-select multiplexers, and two routingmultiplexers. Other embodiments, however, might have a different numberof LUT's in each tile, a different number of inputs for each LUT, adifferent number of input-select multiplexers, and/or a different numberof routing multiplexers.

For instance, some embodiments might employ an architecture that has ineach tile: one three-input LUT, three input-select multiplexers, andeight routing multiplexers. Table 1 below specifies one sucharchitecture for a configurable or reconfigurable IC. Table 1 specifiesthe architecture by listing the inputs of the multiplexers in aparticular tile and providing the source of the inputs. TABLE 1 IdentityInput Source of Input Type of of the of the (In terms of positionMultiplexer Multiplexer Multiplexer of corresponding tile) Routing 0 0Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, −2 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 0 1 The LUT of the tile at position −2, 1 withrespect to current tile Routing 0 2 Routing multiplexer 3 of the currenttile Routing 1 0 The LUT of the tile at position 4, −3 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 1 1 The LUT of the tile at position −2, −2 withrespect to current tile Routing 1 2 The LUT of the tile at position 2, 2with respect to current tile Routing 2 0 The LUT of the tile at position4, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 2 1 The LUT of the tile atposition 0, 1 with respect to current tile Routing 2 2 Routingmultiplexer 1 of the tile at position 0, 1 with respect to current tileRouting 2 3 The LUT of the current tile Routing 2 4 Routing multiplexer1 of the current tile Routing 2 5 The LUT of the tile at position 0, −1with respect to current tile Routing 2 6 Routing multiplexer 2 of thetile at position −1, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 3 0 The LUTof the tile at position 0, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 3 1The LUT of the tile at position 0, 4 with respect to current tileRouting 3 2 The LUT of the tile at position 2, 0 with respect to currenttile Routing 3 3 Routing multiplexer 2 of the tile at position −1, 0with respect to current tile Routing 3 4 The LUT of the tile at position4, 4 with respect to current tile Routing 3 5 Routing multiplexer 3 ofthe tile at position 0, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 3 6 TheLUT of the tile at position 0, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 37 Routing multiplexer 5 of the current tile Routing 4 0 Routingmultiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, 2 with respect to current tileRouting 4 1 The LUT of the current tile Routing 4 2 Routing multiplexer6 of the tile at position −1, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 4 3Routing multiplexer 0 of the current tile Routing 4 4 Routingmultiplexer 7 of the tile at position 0, 1 with respect to current tileRouting 5 0 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, −4 withrespect to current tile Routing 5 1 The LUT of the tile at position −2,0 with respect to current tile Routing 5 2 Routing multiplexer 2 of thecurrent tile Routing 6 0 The LUT of the tile at position 2, 0 withrespect to current tile Routing 6 1 Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile atposition 0, 1 with respect to current tile Routing 7 0 Routingmultiplexer 2 of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect to current tileRouting 7 1 Routing multiplexer 2 of the tile at position −1, 0 withrespect to current tile Input-Select 0 0 Routing multiplexer 5 of thetile at position 0, 1 with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 1Routing multiplexer 5 of the current tile Input-Select 0 2 Routingmultiplexer 2 of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect to current tileInput-Select 0 3 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position −8, 0with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 4 Routing multiplexer 4 ofthe tile at position 5, 3 with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 5Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position −7, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 0 6 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile atposition 8, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 7 Routingmultiplexer 4 of the tile at position 2, 0 with respect to current tileInput-Select 1 0 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position 0, 2 withrespect to current tile Input-Select 1 1 Routing multiplexer 4 of thetile at position −4, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 1 2Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, −4 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 1 3 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile atposition −4, 3 with respect to current tile Input-Select 1 4 Routingmultiplexer 2 of the current tile Input-Select 1 5 Routing multiplexer 4of the tile at position 7, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 16 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position 7, −1 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 1 7 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile atposition 4, 4 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 0 Routingmultiplexer 0 of the current tile Input-Select 2 1 LUT of the tile atposition −2, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 2 LUT of thetile at position 2, −2 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 3Routing multiplexer 2 of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 2 4 Routing multiplexer 5 of the tile atposition 0, 1 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 5 Routingmultiplexer 6 of the current tile Input-Select 2 6 Routing multiplexer 4of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select2 7 LUT of the tile at position 4, −2 with respect to current tile

As mentioned above, Table 1 specifies the architecture by listing theinputs of the multiplexers in a particular tile and providing the sourceof the inputs. The source of each input is expressed as (1) a componentin the particular tile, or (2) a component in another tile, which isidentified in terms of two coordinates (a,b) that express the locationof the other tile by reference to the location of the particular tile.These two coordinates are defined in a coordinate system that has theparticular tile as its origin. In this coordinate system, each unitalong its x- or y-axis is one tile. For instance, using this notation,the tile 1850 in FIG. 18 is connected to the following tiles: (1) tile1855 at location 1,0, (2) tile 1860 at location 0,1, (3) tile 1865 atlocation −1,0, (4) tile 1870 at location 0,−1, (5) tile 1875 at location2,2, and (6) tile 1880 at location −2,−2.

Table 2 specifies another embodiment's architecture for a configurableor reconfigurable IC. In this embodiment, each tile has one three-inputLUT, three input-select multiplexers, and six routing multiplexers.Table 2 specifies the IC architecture by using the same nomenclature asTable 1. TABLE 2 Identity Input Source of Input Type of of the of the(In terms of position Multiplexer Multiplexer Multiplexer ofcorresponding tile) Routing 0 0 The LUT of the tile at position 2, −1with respect to current tile Routing 0 1 The LUT of the tile at position−4, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 0 2 Routing multiplexer 1 ofthe tile at position −4, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 0 3Routing multiplexer 5 of the tile at position 0, −1 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 0 4 Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile at position7, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 0 5 Routing multiplexer 4 ofthe tile at position 0, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 0 6Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile at position −4, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 0 7 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position−3, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 1 0 The LUT of the tile atposition −2, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 1 1 The LUT of thetile at position −5, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 1 2 The LUTof the tile at position 5, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 1 3Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position 0, 3 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 1 4 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position0, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 1 5 Routing multiplexer 3 ofthe tile at position −5, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 1 6Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position 0, 1 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 1 7 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position0, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 2 0 The LUT of the tile atposition −1, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 2 1 The LUT of thetile at position −1, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 2 2 Routingmultiplexer 2 of the tile at position −1, 0 with respect to current tileRouting 2 3 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position −3, 2 withrespect to current tile Routing 2 4 Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile atposition −1, 1 with respect to current tile Routing 2 5 Routingmultiplexer 4 of the tile at position −8, 0 with respect to current tileRouting 2 6 Routing multiplexer 2 of the tile at position 0, −1 withrespect to current tile Routing 2 7 The LUT of the tile at position 5,−2 with respect to current tile Routing 3 0 The LUT of the tile atposition −2, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 3 1 The LUT of thetile at position 1, 3 with respect to current tile Routing 3 2 The LUTof the tile at position −3, −2 with respect to current tile Routing 3 3Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 3 4 Routing multiplexer 0 of the current tileRouting 3 5 Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position 6, −1 withrespect to current tile Routing 3 6 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile atposition 0, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 3 7 Routingmultiplexer 0 of the tile at position 1, −5 with respect to current tileRouting 4 0 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position −4, 0 withrespect to current tile Routing 4 1 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile atposition 4, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 4 2 Routingmultiplexer 3 of the tile at position −2, 0 with respect to current tileRouting 4 3 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position −1, −3 withrespect to current tile Routing 4 4 Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile atposition 7, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 4 5 Routingmultiplexer 3 of the tile at position −6, −1 with respect to currenttile Routing 4 6 Routing multiplexer 5 of the tile at position 4, 2 withrespect to current tile Routing 4 7 The LUT of the tile at position 0, 2with respect to current tile Routing 5 0 Constant Input Routing 5 1Constant Input Routing 5 2 Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position1, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 5 3 Routing multiplexer 3 ofthe tile at position 6, 2 with respect to current tile Routing 5 4Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position −4, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Routing 5 5 Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position−1, −1 with respect to current tile Routing 5 6 Routing multiplexer 0 ofthe tile at position 1, 0 with respect to current tile Routing 5 7Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile at position 7, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 0 0 Routing multiplexer 4 of current tileInput-Select 0 1 Routing multiplexer 4 of the current tile Input-Select0 2 Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position 0, 1 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 0 3 Routing multiplexer 5 of the tile atposition 1, 1 with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 4 Routingmultiplexer 5 of the tile at position 0, −5 with respect to current tileInput-Select 0 5 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, 2 withrespect to current tile Input-Select 0 6 Routing multiplexer 1 of thetile at position −3, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 0 7 TheLUT of the tile at position 0, −1 with respect to current tileInput-Select 1 0 Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile at position 4, 0 withrespect to current tile Input-Select 1 1 Routing multiplexer 1 of thetile at position 4, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 1 2 TheLUT of the tile at position −2, −2 with respect to current tileInput-Select 1 3 Routing multiplexer 5 of the tile at position 0, −3with respect to current tile Input-Select 1 4 Routing multiplexer 4 ofthe tile at position 0, −1 with respect to current tile Input-Select 1 5Routing multiplexer 4 of the tile at position 1, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 1 6 Routing multiplexer 4 of the current tileInput-Select 1 7 Routing multiplexer 1 of the tile at position −1, 5with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 0 Routing multiplexer 2 ofthe tile at position −1, 0 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 1Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position −4, 0 with respect tocurrent tile Input-Select 2 2 Routing multiplexer 0 of the tile atposition −1, 3 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 3 Routingmultiplexer 1 of the tile at position −1, 9 with respect to current tileInput-Select 2 4 Routing multiplexer 3 of the tile at position 0, −7with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 5 Routing multiplexer 0 ofthe tile at position 0, −4 with respect to current tile Input-Select 2 6The LUT of the tile at position 1, −1 with respect to current tileInput-Select 2 7 The LUT of the tile at position −1, 2 with respect tocurrent tile

In some embodiments, each particular tile has the same exact directconnections listed above in Table 1 or 2, with the exception perhaps oftiles at or close to the boundary of the tile arrangement. In someembodiments, the tiles at or close to the boundary do not have some ofthe direct connections that extend past the boundary. Some embodiments“stitch” together tiles that are at or close to the tile array boundary,by defining unique direct connections between such tiles, where theseunique direct connections take the place of the direct connections thatwould otherwise extend past the tile array boundary.

In other embodiments, the tiles at or close to the boundary do have thesame direct connection but these direct connections wrap around to theother side of the tile arrangement. For instance, when a tile is on thetop of the tile array and it has a routing multiplexer that is supposeto connect to a tile above it, the direct connection might be eliminatedor it might be made with a tile at the bottom of the tile array.

In some embodiments, the direct connections illustrated in FIGS. 17-22,and in Table 1 or 2, are the direct connections of each computationaltile (with the possible exception of computational tiles at theboundary), but not the direct connection of the non-computational tiles(e.g., a tile that includes a memory). In other embodiments, the directconnections illustrated in Table 1 or 2 are the direct connections ofsome or all computational and non-computational tiles.

The architecture of some embodiments includes one or more loops betweenthe output of a LUT in a particular computational tile and its input.For instance, the architecture defined by Table 2 includes three suchloops, one for each input of the 3-input LUT. Each such loop isestablished through two routing multiplexers of two other tiles and theinput select multiplexer of the LUT. In this manner, the output of theLUT can be stored in a user register formed by routing multiplexers thatcan be enabled to serve as latches, and this output can be fedback tothe LUT's input.

Routing multiplexer 5 in the architecture specified by Table 2 receivestwo constant values (e.g., receives a “0” and a “1”). This routingmultiplexer has connections with routing multiplexers 1, 3, and 4. Theserouting multiplexers 1, 3, and 4 have good connectivity with the inputselect multiplexers. As further mentioned below in Section IV, the inputselect multiplexers are hybrid logic/interconnect circuits in someembodiments. Some embodiments use these hybrid structures to decomposeand implement logic functions, as described in U.S. patent applicationentitled “Hybrid Configurable Circuit for Configurable IC”, filedconcurrently with the present application, with attorney docket numberTBUL.P0010. As described in this application, these hybrid structuresneed to receive constant values in some instances when they aredecomposing and implementing logic functions. Hence, the architectureillustrated in Table 2 feeds constant values to each routing multiplexer5 of some or all computational tiles. These constant values can then beselectively routed to input-select hybrid multiplexers (through themultiplexers 5, and multiplexers 1, 3, and 4), which then use themduring their decompose and implement logic functions.

In some embodiments, the LUT's, IMUX's, and RMUX's in all the tiles areconfigurable circuits. Also, in some embodiments, all these circuits aresub-cycle configurable circuits that receive their configuration data ona sub-cycle basis. For instance, each sub-cycle configurable LUT ormultiplexer receives its configuration data on a sub-cycle basis througha novel two-tier multiplexer structure described in the above-mentionedU.S. patent application entitled “Configurable IC with InterconnectCircuits that also Perform Storage Operations”, which is filedconcurrently with the present application, with attorney docket numberTBUL.P0022.

In other embodiments, not all the LUT's, IMUX's, and RMUX's of aconfigurable IC are configurable or sub-cycle reconfigurable. Forinstance, in some embodiments, only the IMUX's and RMUX's areconfigurable or sub-cycle reconfigurable, while the LUT's are onlyconfigurable and not sub-cycle reconfigurable.

Also, tiles were described above to include LUT's, IMUX's, and RMUX's.In some embodiments, tiles also include other circuits as furtherdescribed below. Also, as further described in the above-incorporatedU.S. patent application entitled “Configurable IC with InterconnectCircuits that also Perform Storage Operations” (which is filedconcurrently with the present application, with attorney docket numberTBUL.P0022) these tiles include local sub-cycle signal generators insome embodiments. Such sub-cycle signal generators generate sub-cyclesignals for retrieving configuration data sets from memory storage. Insome embodiments, these generators generate their sub-cycle signalsbased on globally distributed clock signals.

Tiles can also include memory arrays in conjunction with the LUT's,IMUX's, and RMUX's, or instead of some of these circuits (e.g., theLUT's). Several such tiles will be further described below.

III. Asymmetric Architecture

Some embodiments provide an asymmetric architecture for a configurableIC. In a tile-based architecture that includes routing interconnects,input-select interconnects, and logic circuits, the architecture can beasymmetric when it comes to the inputs of the routing interconnects, theoutputs of the routing interconnects, the inputs of the input-selectinterconnects, or the output of the logic circuits. The architecture ofthe configurable IC of some embodiments is asymmetric with respect toall these conditions, while the architecture of other embodiments isasymmetric with respect to only some of these conditions.

For instance, an architecture can be asymmetric with respect to theinputs of the routing interconnects when at least one input of therouting interconnect in a particular tile is not “symmetric” with anyother input of the routing interconnects of the particular tile. Twoinputs are symmetric when they originate from two tiles that have asymmetric relationship with respect to each other when viewed from theposition of the particular tile. Some embodiments define two tiles ashaving a symmetric relationship with respect to the position of a thirdtile when the two tiles can swap positions when they are flipped aboutan origin that is defined at the position of the third tile. Instead of,or in conjunction with, this definition, some embodiments define twotiles as having a symmetric relationship when one tile can take theposition of the other tile if the two tiles are rotated about the originthat is defined at the position of the third tile.

FIG. 23 illustrates an example of an architecture 2300 that isasymmetric with respect to the inputs of the routing interconnects. Thisarchitecture is similar to the architecture illustrated in FIGS. 17-22,except that it includes two routing-interconnect inputs 2305 and 2310that are not symmetric with any of the other inputs to the routinginterconnect 1730. The input 2305 comes from a routing multiplexer intile 2315 at (2,3), while the input 2310 comes from a routingmultiplexer in tile 2320 at (−1,−2). These two inputs take the place ofthe inputs illustrated in FIG. 21 from the routing multiplexers 2115 and2120.

Similarly, an architecture can be asymmetric with respect to the outputsof the routing interconnects of a tile when at least one output of therouting interconnect in a particular tile is not “symmetric” with anyother output of the routing interconnects of the particular tile. Twooutputs of one or two routing interconnects in a particular tile areasymmetric when they are supplied to two circuits at two locations inthe tile arrangement that do not have a symmetric relationship withrespect to each other in the configurable IC when viewed from theposition of the particular tile.

An architecture can also be asymmetric with respect to the inputs of theinput-select interconnects when at least one input of the input-selectinterconnect in a particular tile is not “symmetric” with any otherinput of the input-select interconnects of the particular tile. Twoinputs of one or two input-select interconnects in a particular tile areasymmetric when they are received from two circuits at two locations inthe tile arrangement that do not have a symmetric relationship withrespect to each other in the configurable IC when viewed from theposition of the particular tile.

An architecture can also be asymmetric with respect to the outputs ofthe set of logic circuits of a tile when at least one output of a logiccircuit in a particular tile is not “symmetric” with any other output ofthe logic circuit set of the particular tile. Two outputs of one or twologic circuits in a particular tile are asymmetric when they aresupplied to two circuits at two locations in the tile arrangement thatdo not have a symmetric relationship with respect to each other in theconfigurable IC when viewed from the position of the particular tile.

As mentioned above, each tile in some embodiments has the same set ofasymmetric connections (e.g., asymmetric inputs to RMUX's, asymmetricinputs to IMUX's, etc.) with other tiles, except for tiles that are ator close to the boundary of the tile arrangement that need to addressboundary conditions. In other embodiments, different tiles havedifferent sets of connections with other tiles. However, in some ofthese embodiments, large sets of tiles (e.g., hundreds, thousands, etc.)have the same set of asymmetric connections with other tiles. The tilesin such large sets might all be interior tiles, or they might be tilesat or close to the boundary that need to have special connectionsdefined to address boundary issues as mentioned above. By avoidingsymmetric sets of direct connections, or using only a few of them, someembodiments reduce the number of redundant cyclic direct connections ina design. Moreover, the use of direct asymmetric offset connections inthese architectures increases the interconnectivity between the circuitsof the IC.

In some embodiments, the outputs or inputs of a particular tile'srouting interconnects, input-select interconnects, or logic circuits arenot physically symmetric as they include at least one output or oneinput that is not symmetric with respect to any of the other outputs orinputs. However, in some of these embodiments, the outputs or inputs ofthe particular tile routing interconnects, input-select interconnects,or logic circuits are isotropic or approximately isotropic. Each outputor input connection can be represented in terms of a vector that isdefined in terms of the start and end points of the connection. Forinstance, an output connection from a first routing interconnect in afirst tile might take the output of the first routing interconnect to aninput of a second routing interconnect in a second tile that is twotiles above and three tiles to the right of the first tile. Thisconnection can be represented by a vector representation (3,2). A set ofoutputs or inputs connections is isotropic when the sum of the vectorsthat these connections represent equals a vector (0,0).

IV. Routing and Input Multiplexers as Interconnect/Storage Circuits andas Hybrid Interconnect/Logic Circuits

A. Interconnect/Storage Circuits

Numerous of the above-described architectures use routing multiplexers.In some embodiments, some or all of these routing multiplexers areinterconnect/storage circuits that are useful for maintaining stateinformation in a configurable IC. To illustrate the need for such stateelements, FIGS. 24-27 present an example of implementing an IC designwith a sub-cycle reconfigurable IC.

FIG. 24 illustrates a set of Boolean gates that compute two functionsbased on a set of inputs A0, B0, A1, B1, A2, and B2. The set of Booleangates has to compute these two functions based on the received input setin one design cycle. In this example, one design cycle lasts 10 ns, asthe design clock's frequency is 100 MHz. However, in this example, eachgate can operate at 400 MHz. Hence, each design cycle can be broken downinto four sub-cycles of 2.5 ns duration, in order to allow meet thedesign clock frequency of 100 MHz.

FIG. 25 illustrates the design 2400 of FIG. 24 after its gates have beenplaced into four groups. These gates have been placed into four groupsin order to break down the design 2400 into four separate groups ofgates that can be configured and executed in four sub-cycles by asmaller group of gates. The groupings illustrated in FIG. 25 aredesigned to separate out the computation of different sets of gateswhile respecting the operational dependencies of other gates. Forinstance, gates 2405, 2410, and 2415 are defined as a separate groupfrom gates 2420, 2425, and 2430, as these two sets of gates have nooperational dependencies (i.e., the output of the gates in one set isnot dependent on the output of the gates in the other set). As these twosets of gates have no operational dependencies, one set is selected forcomputation during the first sub-cycle (i.e., during phase 1), while theother set is selected for computation during the second sub-cycle (i.e.,during phase 2). On the other hand, gates 2435, 2440, and 2445 aredependent on the outputs of the first two sets of gates. Hence, they aredesignated for configuration and execution during the third sub-cycle(i.e., during phase 3). Finally, the gate 2450 is dependent on theoutput of the first and third sets of gates, and thus it is designatedfor configuration and execution during the fourth sub-cycle (i.e.,during phase 4).

FIG. 26 illustrates another representation of the design 2400 of FIG.24. Like FIG. 25, the schematic in FIG. 26 illustrates four phases ofoperation. However, now, each gate in the design 2400 has been replacedby a sub-cycle configurable logic circuit 2605, 2610, or 2615. Also,only three logic circuits 2605, 2610, and 2615 are used in FIG. 26, aseach of the gates in FIG. 24 can be implemented by one logic circuit,and the groupings illustrated in FIGS. 25 and 26 require at most threegates to execute during any given phase. (In FIG. 26, each logiccircuit's operation during a particular phase is identified by asuperscript; so, for example, reference numbers 2605 ¹, 2605 ², and 2605³, respectively, identify the operation of the logic circuit 2605 duringphases 1, 2, and 3.)

As shown in FIG. 26, the outputs of certain logic circuits in earlierphases need to be supplied to logic circuit operations in the laterphases. Such earlier outputs can be preserved for later computations byusing state elements (such as registers or latches). Such state elements(not shown) can be standalone circuits or can be part of one or moreinterconnect circuits.

As mentioned above, the state elements in some embodiments are routingmultiplexers that can serve as both storage and interconnect circuits.Specifically, each such routing multiplexer is a configurableinterconnect/storage circuit that can be configured to act as aninterconnect circuit or as a storage circuit. In some embodiments, allthe routing multiplexers of a configurable or reconfigurable IC areconfigurable interconnect/storage circuits, while in other embodimentsonly some of the routing multiplexers of the IC are configurableinterconnect/storage circuits.

FIG. 27 illustrates a circuit representation of an interconnect/storagecircuit 2700 that can be used to implement the routing multiplexer ofsome embodiments. This circuit 2700 is formed by placing a latch 2705 atthe output stage of a multiplexer 2710. The latch 2705 receives a latchenable signal. When the latch enable signal is inactive, the circuitsimply acts as an interconnect circuit. On the other hand, when thelatch enable signal is active, the circuit acts as a latch that outputsthe value that the circuit was previously outputting while serving as aninterconnect circuit. Accordingly, when a second circuit in a secondlater configuration cycle needs to receive the value of a first circuitin a first earlier configuration cycle, the circuit 2700 can be used toreceive the value in a cycle before the second later configuration cycle(e.g., in the first earlier cycle) and to latch and output the value tothe second circuit in the second later sub-cycle. The circuit 2700 andother interconnect/storage circuits are further described in theabove-mentioned U.S. patent application entitled “Configurable IC withInterconnect Circuits that also Perform Storage Operations”, which isfiled concurrently with the present application, with attorney docketnumber TBUL.P0022.

Some embodiments do not use the interconnect/storage circuits (such asthe circuit 2700 of FIG. 27) for any of the input-select multiplexers.Other embodiments, however, use such interconnect/storage circuits forsome or all of the input-select multiplexers. Yet other embodimentsmight use the interconnect/storage circuits for only the input-selectmultiplexers, and not for the routing multiplexers.

B. Hybrid Circuits

The configurable IC's of some embodiments include numerous input selectmultiplexers that are hybrid multiplexers, called HUMUX's. An HUMUX is amultiplexer that can receive “user-design signals”, configuration data,or both user-design signals and configuration data for its selectsignals. A user-design signal within a configurable IC is a signal thatis generated by a circuit (e.g., a logic circuit) of the configurableIC. The word “user” in the term “user-design signal” connotes that thesignal is a signal that the configurable IC generates for a particularuser application. User-design signal is abbreviated to user signal insome of the discussion below.

In some embodiments, a user signal is not a configuration or clocksignal that is generated by or supplied to the configurable IC. In someembodiments, a user signal is a signal that is a function of at least aportion of the configuration data received by the configurable IC and atleast a portion of the inputs to the configurable IC. In theseembodiments, the user signal can also be dependent on (i.e., can also bea function of) the state of the configurable IC. The initial state of aconfigurable IC is a function of the configuration data received by theconfigurable IC and the inputs to the configurable IC. Subsequent statesof the configurable IC are functions of the configuration data receivedby the configurable IC, the inputs to the configurable IC, and the priorstates of the configurable IC.

FIG. 28 illustrates an HUMUX 2800. This HUMUX includes two two-to-onemultiplexers 2820, a four-to-one multiplexer 2825, a set of inputterminals 2805, an output terminal 2810, and a set of select terminals2815. From the outside, the HUMUX looks like a four-to-one multiplexerthat has four data inputs 2805, one data output 2810, and four selectterminals 2815. Also, from the outside, the HUMUX looks like it passesone of its four data inputs 2805 to its one data output 2810 based onthe value of two of the four signals that it receives along its fourselect lines 2815.

Internally, the two two-to-one multiplexers 2820 pass two of the signalsfrom the four select lines 2815 to the two select terminals 2840 of thefour-to-one multiplexer 2825. As shown in FIG. 28, each two-to-onemultiplexer 2820 receives two input signals, which include oneuser-design signal and one stored configuration signal stored in astorage element 2845. Each of the two-to-one multiplexers 2820 outputsone of the two input signals that it receives based on the configurationbit that it receives along its select line 2850.

Although FIG. 28 illustrates two configuration bits stored in twostorage elements, some embodiments drive both multiplexers 2820 off oneconfiguration bit that is stored in one storage element. Also, someembodiments have a sub-set of the select lines 2840 always driven byconfiguration data. In other words, these embodiments drive only one ofthe select lines 2840 potentially with a user signal; the other selectline 2840 would always be driven by configuration data. These and otherHUMUX structures are described in U.S. patent application entitled“Hybrid Configurable Circuit for Configurable IC”, filed concurrentlywith the present application, with attorney docket number TBUL.P0010.This application is incorporated herein by reference.

The two signals output by the two multiplexers 2820 then serve as theselect signals of the multiplexer 2825, and thereby direct thismultiplexer 2825 to output on line 2810 one of the four input signalsthat it receives on lines 2805. The two multiplexers 2820 can output onlines 2840 either two user-design signals, two configuration signals, orone user-design signal and one configuration signal. Accordingly,through the two multiplexers 2820, the operation of the multiplexer 2825can be controlled by two user-design signals, two configuration signals,or a mix of user/configuration signals.

HUMUX's are hybrid interconnect/logic circuits. In other words, HUMUX'scan serve as logic and interconnect circuits in a configurable IC. Thishybrid quality is especially advantageous since, as logic circuits,HUMUX's can be used to decompose and implement functions. In order todecompose and implement functions with HUMUX's, some embodiments defineone input of some or all HUMUX's to be a permanently inverting input.The use of an HUMUX to decompose functions is further described in theabove-incorporated U.S. patent application entitled “Hybrid ConfigurableCircuit for Configurable IC”, filed concurrently with the presentapplication, with attorney docket number TBUL.P0010.

This incorporated application also further describes the use of HUMUX'sfor some or all of the input select multiplexers. It further describesthe use of HUMUX's as some or all of the routing multiplexers. Someembodiments, however, use HUMUX's only for some or all of the inputselect multiplexers, while using the interconnect/storage circuit ofFIG. 27 for some or all of the routing multiplexers.

V. Architecture with Fast Carry Chains

In some embodiments, the examples illustrated in FIGS. 17-22 and Tables1 and 2 define the physical architecture of a configurable IC. In otherembodiments, these examples topologically illustrate the architecture ofa configurable IC. Specifically, in these embodiments, the directconnections illustrated and defined in FIGS. 18-22 and Tables 1 and 2are only meant to show direct connections between the circuits in theconfigurable IC, without specifying (1) a particular geometric layoutfor the wire segments that establish the direct connections, or even (2)a particular position of the circuits.

In some embodiments, the position and orientation of the circuits in theactual physical architecture of a configurable IC is different from theposition and orientation of the circuits in the topological architectureof the configurable IC. Accordingly, in these embodiments, the IC'sphysical architecture appears quite different from its topologicalarchitecture.

FIGS. 29 and 30 provide one example that illustrates such a difference.Specifically, FIG. 29 topologically illustrates a portion of thearchitecture of a configurable IC 2900. This IC's architecture in FIG.29 is formed by a series of tiles that are arranged in multipletopological rows and columns. In FIG. 29, each tile is numbered. Likeeach tile 1705 in FIG. 17, each tile 2905 in FIG. 29 includes tworouting multiplexers 1730 and 1735, three input-select multiplexers1715, 1720, and 1725, and one three input LUT 1710.

However, unlike FIG. 17, FIG. 29 also illustrates a carry logic circuit2910 in each tile. The LUT and carry logic circuit in each tile form alogic carry block (LCB) that allows the LUT to implement anadder/subtractor, which can perform an add or subtract operation asfurther described below. FIG. 30 illustrates a portion of the actualphysical architecture of the configurable IC 2900. As shown in thisfigure, the configurable IC 2900 is formed by (1) grouping sets of fourtopologically adjacent tiles that are in the same topological row inFIG. 29, and (2) aligning the tiles in each group so that their logiccarry blocks are adjacent to each other. In each group of aligned tiles,the tiles are rotated by −90° or 90° with respect to the alignmentillustrated in FIG. 29. Each set of four aligned tiles forms an alignedtile layout that has four logic circuits and four carry logic circuitsthat are close to each other.

Specifically, in this example, (1) the first topological row is dividedinto a first set of tiles 1-4 and a second set of tiles 5-8, (2) thesecond topological row is divided into a third set of tiles 9-12 and afourth set of tiles 13-16, (3) the third topological row is divided intoa fifth set of tiles 17-20 and a sixth set of tiles 21-24, and (4) thefourth topological row is divided into a seventh set of tiles 25-28 andan eighth set of tiles 29-32. In each set of four tiles, the first twotiles are rotated by −90° with respect to the alignment illustrated inFIG. 29, while the second two tiles are rotated by 90° with respect tothe alignment illustrated in FIG. 29. The tiles in each set are alignedin the manner illustrated in FIG. 30, to form aligned tile layouts. Forinstance, tiles 1-4 form a first aligned tile layout, tiles 5-8 form asecond aligned tile layout, and so on.

In some embodiments, the aligned tile layout can be viewed as a layoutreplica (i.e., unit of architectural regularity) that is definedcollectively as a set, and that is repeated across the layout of theconfigurable IC. In some embodiments, tile layouts can actually be usedas layout replicas during the design process to define the layout of aconfigurable IC, while in other embodiments tile layouts are simply anabstraction for viewing a pattern of circuits that is repeated acrossthe layout.

Having the aligned tile layout with the same circuit elements simplifiesthe process for designing and fabricating the IC, as it allows the samecircuit designs and mask patterns to be repetitively used to design andfabricate the IC. In some embodiments, the similar aligned tile layoutnot only has the same circuit elements but also have the same exactinternal wiring between their circuit elements. Having such a layoutfurther simplifies the design and fabrication processes as it furthersimplifies the design and mask making processes.

To further elaborate on the proximity of the logic carry blocks withineach aligned tile layout, FIG. 31 provides another illustration of analigned tile layout 3100, which is formed by four tiles 3105-3120 (in atopological row) that are aligned in the physical architecture. In thisillustration, only the logic carry blocks 3125-3140 within each tile isillustrated. As mentioned above, each LCB is formed by a LUT and itsassociated carry logic circuit in a tile. As shown in FIG. 31, thealignment of the tiles clusters the logic carry blocks 3125-3140 closeto each other. This close proximity, in turn, allows the four LCB's toform a fast nibble wide (4-bit) adder/subtractor.

To elaborate on this, FIG. 32 provides a simple illustration of an LCB3200 that is formed by a three-input LUT 3205 and its associated carrylogic circuit 3210. When acting as a one-bit adder/subtractor, athree-input LUT 3205 receives (1) two one-bit inputs “a” and “b” to addand (2) a carry signal “c” (C_(IN)) that gets factored in the addition.The LCB 3200 of a particular tile can receive (1) a local carry signalfrom the carry logic circuit of a neighboring tile in the sametopological row as the particular tile, or (2) a global carry signalfrom a carry logic circuit in a different topological row.

Based on the three input signals that it receives, the LUT 3205expresses the result of its addition operation in terms of a functionf(a,b,c), a propagate signal P, and a generate signal G. When the LUT3205 acts as an adder/subtractor, the function f(a,b,c) expresses thesum of “a” and “b” with “c” (C_(IN)) as the carry-in signal. Morespecifically, when adding two one-bit values, the LUT's output functionf(a,b,c) computes the sum as (a⊕b)⊕c. When subtracting a one-bit value,the LUT's output function f(a,b,c) computes a “2's complement”subtraction as ( a⊕b)⊕c.

Also, when the LCB 3200 adds two one-bit values, the propagate signal Pequals (a⊕b), and the generate signal G equals (a·b). Alternatively,when the LCB 3200 subtracts two one-bit values, the propagate signal Pequals ( a⊕b), and the generate signal G equals (a· b). The propagateand generate signals are supplied to the carry logic circuit 3210,which, based on these signals, computes a carry signal C_(OUT) thatequals G+(P·c). The generate signal directs the carry logic circuit 3210to generate a carry signal C_(OUT), regardless of whether there is acarry that is being propagated. The propagate signal directs the carrylogic circuit 3210 to propagate the carry signal regardless of whetherthere is a carry that is being generated. The carry signal C_(OUT)computed by the circuit 3210 is the next most significant LCB in aripple chain of adders that add two multi bit values, is the mostsignificant bit of the resulting add operation, or is the expressedoverflow.

Each LCB can form a one-bit adder/subtractor or form largeradders/subtractors when it is used in conjunction with other LCB's.Accordingly, to form fast four-bit adders/subtractors, some embodimentsplace the four LCB's in an aligned tile layout close to each other, sothat the carry signals can be quickly passed between adjacent LCB's.FIG. 31 shows a carry signal trace 3150 that highlights the direction ofcarry-signal flow through four, aligned LCB's of an aligned tile layout.Alternative carry-signal flows through four, aligned LCB's are alsopossible, such as the flow illustrated in FIG. 33. Due to the proximityof the LCB's, most of these carry-signal flows allow the four, alignedLCB's to form a fast nibble-wide adder/subtractor. In addition, whenganged with other fast nibble wide adders/subtractors that are on thesame topological row, the nibble wide adders/subtractors can form fastbyte-wise adders/subtractors (as shown in FIG. 34) or other largeradders/subtractors (sixteen bit adders/subtractors, thirty-two bitadders/subtractors, etc.).

As mentioned above, FIG. 29 provides a topological illustration of aportion of a configurable IC's architecture. The description abovehighlighted that in some embodiments the position and orientation of thecircuits in the actual physical architecture of the configurable IC isdifferent from the position and orientation of the circuits in thetopological architecture of the configurable IC. Also, in someembodiments, the topological and/or actual geometric layout of wiresegments and/or vias that define the direct connections between thecircuits can change once the tiles are grouped and aligned.

To illustrate this, FIG. 29 presents topological illustrations 2915 and2920 of two direct connections, one between the second routingmultiplexers of tiles 1 and 26, and one between the second routingmultiplexers of tiles 2 and 27. FIG. 30 presents topologicalillustrations 3015 and 3020 of the same two direct connections after thetiles have been grouped and aligned. As shown in these two figures, therealignment of the tiles changes the topological direct connections bychanging the relative position of the two circuits that are connected ineach connected pair of circuits.

The change in the relative position of the connected circuit pairs willtypically also result in a change in the actual geometric layout of thedirect connection between the connected circuits. As mentioned above,the geometric layout of a direct connection often differs from itstopological representation. In addition, as mentioned above, a directconnection between two circuits can be achieved by (1) a set of wiresegments that traverse through a set of the wiring layers of the IC, and(2) a set of vias when two or more wiring layers are involved. A directconnection can also include one or more buffers in some embodiments,while such a connection does not include buffers in other embodiments.

VI. Architecture with Shared Carry Logic

Instead of having to group and align tiles, some embodiments definealigned tile layouts from the start and then simply use the notion oftiles within the aligned tile layouts to define the interconnecttopology of the circuits. Some of these embodiments specify the positionof the four LUT's and four carry logic circuits within each aligned tilelayout to be close to each other so that these LUT's and circuits canform fast nibble wide adders/subtractors.

Alternatively, in an aligned tile layout, some embodiments define onecommon carry chain that is shared among the four logic circuits in thetile layout. FIG. 35 illustrates one such layout 3500. As shown in thisfigure, this layout includes four logic circuits (0-3), and a sharedcarry logic 3505.

Each logic circuit i receives three input signals a_(i), b_(i), c_(i)through three input-select multiplexers 3550 During an add operation,the third input c_(i) of each LUT is one of the outputs of the carrylogic 3505. Based on the three input signals that it receives, each LUTi expresses the result of its addition operation in terms of (1) afunction f_(i)(a_(i), b_(i), c_(i)) that is dependent on the three inputsignals, (2) a propagate signal P_(i) that equals (a_(i)⊕b_(i)) whena_(i) and b_(i) are added and equals ( a_(i)⊕b_(i) ) when b_(i) issubtracted from a_(i), and (3) a generate signal G_(i) that equals(a_(i)·b_(i)) when a_(i) and b_(i) are added and equals (a_(i)· b_(i) )when b_(i) is subtracted from a_(i),

Also, during an add or subtract operation, each LUT i provides itspropagate signal P_(i). and generate signal G_(i) to the carry logic3505. The carry logic 3505 also receives a carry input C_(IN), which iseither a local carry input C_(INL) (i.e., a carry input from a tile inthe same topological row) or a global carry input C_(ING) (i.e., a carryinput from a tile in a different topological row), as determined by amultiplexer 3510 associated with the aligned tile group.

Based on its input signals, the carry logic 3505 generates four carrysignals c₀, c₁, c₂, and c₃, which it supplies to the four LUT's 0-3during an add operation. The first carry signal c₀ equals the carryinput C_(IN), which the carry logic 3505 receives. In some embodiments,each other carry signal c_(j) produced by the carry logic 3505 isderived from the propagate, generate, and carry signals from theprevious stage LUT. For instance, in some embodiments, the carry signalc_(j) equals (P_(i-1)·C_(i-1))+G_(i-1), for cases where i can equal 1,2, 3, or 4, and the last carry signal C_(OUT) equals the carry signalc₄. This carry signal C_(OUT) can be output as a local carry outputC_(OUTL) (e.g., a carry output to a tile in the same topological row)and a global carry output C_(OUTG) (e.g., a carry output to a tile in adifferent topological row) through associated buffer and/or routingcircuitry (not shown).

The sharing of the carry logic and the clustering of the logic circuits0-3 allows the tiles in the aligned tile layout 3500 to form a fastfour-bit adder/subtractor. In addition, when ganged with other fastnibble wide adders/subtractors that are on the same topological row, thenibble wide adders/subtractors can form fast byte-wiseadders/subtractors (as shown in FIG. 34) or other largeradders/subtractors (sixteen bit adders/subtractors, thirty-two bitadders/subtractors, etc.).

To further speed the carry logic circuitry for largeradders/subtractors, bypass circuitry can be used to bypass the sharedcarry logic 3505. FIG. 36 illustrates one such bypass circuitry. Asshown in this figure, the bypass circuitry 3600 includes the sharedcarry logic circuit 3505, an AND gate 3610, and a two-to-one multiplexer3615. The shared carry logic 3505 generates the carry signals (c₀, c₁,c₂, c₃, and C_(OUT)) based on the functions that were discussed abovewhile describing FIG. 35. An example of the shared carry logic circuit3505 will be described below by reference to FIG. 39.

When all the propagate signals generated by the logic circuits (0-3) are“1”, the AND gate produces a “1”, which directs the multiplexer 3615 tooutput as C_(OUT) the carry signal C_(IN) that the carry logic 3505receives. On the other hand, when one of the propagate signals is not 1,the AND gate 3610 produces a “0”, which directs the multiplexer 3615 tooutput the output carry signal C_(OUT) that is produced by the sharedcarry logic circuit 3505. Bypassing the computations of the shared carrycircuit 3505 speeds up the operation of the four-bit adder/subtractorformed by the logic and carry circuits in the aligned tile layout 3500of FIG. 35.

Some embodiments also use a portion of this bypass circuitry of thecarry logic circuit to generate complex functions with the logic andcarry circuits in the aligned tile layout 3500, when these circuits arenot used to implement an adder/subtractor. For instance, when all theLUT's are configured to add two one-bit values, the output S of the ANDgate 3610 can be expressed as follows:S=(a ₀ ⊕b ₀)·(a ₁ ⊕b ₁)·(a ₂ ⊕b ₂)·(a ₃ ⊕b ₃).As expressed in this equation, the AND gate's output S equals theAND'ing of four XOR operations that can be performed by the four logiccircuits 0-3 on their first two inputs “a” and “b”.

Such a complex function can be used to implement a series of complexfunctions through NPN operations, where NPN stands for negate input(i.e., invert input), permute input, and negate output. For instance,such a function can be used to determine whether two four-bit signalsare identical by inverting the four bits of one of the signals. Thisinversion will cause the XOR operation to produce a 1, whenever the twocorresponding bits in the two signals are identical. Hence, the outputof the AND gate 3610 provides the results of a four-bit comparison oftwo four-bit signals, when the four bits of one of the two signals areinverted, and the inverted signal is provided to the logic circuits ofthe aligned tile layout along with the other non-inverted signal. Insuch a situation, an output value of “1” for the AND gate specifies thatthe two four bit signals are identical, while an output value of “0”specifies a difference between the two signals. Larger comparators canbe quickly created by AND'ing the outputs of the AND gates 3610 ofseveral aligned tile layouts. For instance, a sixteen-bit comparatorthat can compare two sixteen-bit signals can be created by AND'ing theoutputs of the AND gates 3610 of four aligned tile layouts.

The output of the AND gate 3610 and the multiplexer 3615 in FIG. 36 isfed to a sub-cycle configurable two-to-one multiplexer (not shown).Based on its configuration, this multiplexer then determines which ofthe two outputs it should direct to the routing fabric for routing toother circuits in the IC.

VII. Configurable LUT that Serves as an Adder/Subtractor and ManchesterCarry Chain

FIG. 37 illustrates an example of a three-input LUT 3700 of someembodiments of the invention. This LUT can be used as the LUT 3205 ofFIG. 32, or the LUT. During an add or subtract operation, the LUT 3700,like the LUT 3205, (1) performs the actual add or subtract computation,and (2) produces the propagate and generates values that are to be usedby the carry logic that will generate the next carry bit and summation.

The LUT 3700 is implemented in complementary pass logic (CPL). In thisimplementation, a complementary pair of signals represents each logicsignal, where an empty circle at the input or output of a circuitdenotes the complementary input or output of the circuit in the figures.The LUT has three sections, a core logic section 3705, a propagatesection 3710, and a generate section. The core logic section 3705 isformed by three stages 3730, 3735, and 3740 of multiplexers that arecontrolled by the three input signals a, b, and c. The core logicsection 3705 generates the function f(a,b,c) computed by the logiccircuit 3700.

Given that the LUT 3700 is a configurable logic circuit, the functionthat it computes depends on the values of configuration bits supplied tothe first stage of multiplexers 3730 of the LUT. For instance, whenadding two one-bit values (i.e., computing a+b), the values of the trueconfiguration bits are 10010110, with the most significant bit beingsupplied to multiplexer input 3720 and the least significant bit beingsupplied to the multiplexer input 3725. Alternatively, the configurationbits are 01101001, when the LUT subtracts two one-bit values (i.e.,computes a−b). The values of the complement configuration bits are theinverted version of their corresponding true configuration bits.

As shown in FIG. 37, half of the first stage multiplexers 3730 aredriven by the input “a” and its complement, while the other half of thefirst stage multiplexers 3730 are driven by the input “b” and itscomplement. The above-mentioned U.S. patent application entitled“Configurable IC with Interconnect Circuits that also Perform StorageOperations” (which is filed concurrently with the present application,with attorney docket number TBUL.P0022) discloses an example of aCPL-implementation of a multiplexer.

The output of the first stage multiplexers 3730 are supplied to thesecond stage multiplexers 3735, in the manner illustrated in FIG. 37.One of the second-stage multiplexers is driven by the input signal “b”,while the other second-stage multiplexer is driven by the input signal“a”. The signals for driving the multiplexers in the first stage 3730and the second stage 3735 are a mixture of the two input signals “a” and“b”, in order to balance loading and therefore delay on the signals “a”and “b”. However, in other embodiments, all the first stage multiplexersare driven only by the input “a”, while all the second stagemultiplexers are driven by the input “b”, or vice versa.

The outputs of the second stage multiplexers 3735 are supplied to thethird stage multiplexer 3740, which is driven by the input signal “c”.The output of the third stage multiplexer is the function computed bythe LUT 3700. This output is expressed in CPL format, i.e., in terms ofthe function f and its complement.

The LUT's propagate section 3710 produces the propagate signal P and itscomplement. This section has two stages of multiplexers 3750 and 3755.The first stage of multiplexers 3750 receive the lowest four significantbits of the configuration data, in the manner indicated in FIG. 37.Specifically, this figure identifies the lowest four significantconfiguration bits by number, and then illustrates how these four bitsare supplied to the first stage multiplexers 3750 of thepropagate-generation section 3710.

The first stage multiplexers 3750 are driven by the input signal “b”.The output of the first multiplexer stage is supplied to a multiplexer3755 that forms the second multiplexer stage of the section 3710. Thismultiplexer 3755 is driven by the input signal “a”. The output of thesecond stage multiplexer 3755 represents the propagate signal P. Insteadof the propagate section 3710, the LUT's of some embodiments use thepropagate section 3760, which is a circuit equivalent of the section3710 for the input configuration illustrated in FIG. 37. The output ofboth sections 3710 and 3760 is expressed in CPL format, i.e., in termsof the propagate signal P and its complement.

The LUT's generate section 3715 produces the generate signal G and itscomplement. This section includes a two-to-one CPL multiplexer thatreceives the input “a” and “ a” along its select lines. When adding twoone-bit values, the multiplexer in section 3715 receives the signals “0”and “1” along its first complementary pair 3780 of input lines and thesignals “b” and “ b” along its second complementary pair 3785 of inputlines. When subtracting two one-bit values, the multiplexer in section3715 receives the signals 1 and 0 along its first complementary pair3780 of input lines and the signals “ b” and “b” along its secondcomplementary pair 3785 of input lines. Hence, the output of thismultiplexer provides the function G (which equals (a·b) when “a” and “b”are added and (a· b) when b is subtracted from a), and the complement ofthis function.

FIG. 38 illustrates a three-input LUT 3800 that is an optimized versionof the LUT 3700 of FIG. 37. In LUT 3800, the propagate section 3710 isreplaced with the propagate section 3760, which was described above byreference to FIG. 37. Also, in LUT 3800, the generate section 3715 hasbeen eliminated. Instead of producing the generate signal G and itscomplement, the LUT 3800 produces the generate signal G′ and itscomplement. Unlike the signal G, which equals (a·b) or (a· b), thesignal G′ equals “a” while its complement equals a.

The LUT 3800 produces the signal G′ and its complement in such a fashionbased on the following observation. As mentioned above, the carry outsignal C_(OUT) produced by an LCB (e.g., LCB 3200) equals (P·C_(in))+G,where P and G are the propagate and generate signals produced by the LCBand C_(IN) is the carry in signal received by the LCB. The C_(OUT)equation can be expressed as the C_(OUT) equals the propagate signalwhen the carry in signal C_(IN) is “1”, and equals the generate signalwhen the carry in signal C_(IN) is “0”. In other words, the generatesignal can be ignored unless the propagate signal is “0”.

However, when the propagate signal is “0”, then either both “a” and “b”equal “1”, or both “a” and “b” equal “0”. When the propagate signal is“0” and the generate signal needs to be examined, the generate signalequals either “a” or “b”, both of which are equal. Accordingly, insteadof computing (a·b) or (a· b) to produce a generate value G, the LUT 3800outputs a generate value G′ that equals “a” and a generate complementvalue G that equals “ a.”

FIG. 39 illustrates a CPL-implementation of a four-stage Manchestercarry chain 3900 that can serve as the shared carry logic 3605 of FIG.36. As shown in FIG. 39, each stage of the chain 3900 includes atwo-to-one CPL multiplexer (3905, 3910, 3915, or 3920) that connects twoof its four input lines to two output lines based on the two signalsthat it receives on its select lines.

The multiplexer of each stage produces the carry signal of the nextstage, or the output carry signal of a nibble-wide adder/subtractor,based on the propagate and generate signals generated by the LUT of thecurrent stage and the carry out of the previous stage. For instance, thesecond multiplexer 3910 in this chain produces the carry signal c₂ (1)for LUT 2 in a four LUT tile group (like group 3500), and (2) for thethird multiplexer 3910 in the carry chain. The second multiplexer 3910computes the carry signal c₂ as (P₁·c₁)+G₁. More specifically, thesecond multiplexer 3910 sets c₂ and c ₂ equal to c₁ and c ₁ when the P₁equals “1”, and sets c₂ and c ₂ equal to G′₁ and G′₁ when the P₁ equals“0”.

This carry chain 3900 is referred to as a Manchester carry chain sinceeach CPL multiplexer is formed by pass transistor logic. As mentionedabove, examples of such multiplexers are described in theabove-incorporated U.S. patent application entitled “Configurable ICwith Interconnect Circuits that also Perform Storage Operations” (whichis filed concurrently with the present application, with attorney docketnumber TBUL.P0022). One of ordinary skill will realize that otherembodiments might use other types of logic to form the carry chain, suchas full complex CMOS, dynamic CMOS, etc. Also, other embodiments mightstructure the carry chain differently. In addition, FIG. 39 illustratesthe carry chain 3900 as receiving the generate signals G′ and G′, whichcan be produce by LUT's like LUT 3800. This carry chain, however, canalso be used with LUT's like LUT 3700 that produce generate signals Gand G.

VIII. Dual Carry Chains

Some embodiments of the invention have two carry chains in each alignedtile group to provide the IC designer maximum flexibility in arrangingthe data paths in the design. FIG. 40 presents a topologicalillustration of one such tile group 4000. This tile group 4000 includesfour tiles 4005, and four routing multiplexers 4035, 4040, 4045, and4050. Each tile 4005 includes six routing multiplexers 4010, three inputselect multiplexers 4015, one three-input LUT 4020. In each tile, twoinput select multiplexers 4015 (labeled as multiplexers 1 and 2) areHUMUX's, which receive user signals through routing multiplexers 4035and 4040 of the tile group.

As shown in FIG. 40, the tile group 4000 also includes two carry chains,a left-to-right carry chain 4025 and a right-to-left carry chain 4030.These carry chains illustrate the direction of carry signal flow throughan adder/subtractor formed by the LUT's and carry logic circuits of thetile group 4000. Each carry chain receives the output of a routingmultiplexer 4045 or 4050, which provides a local or global carry insignal. As further described below, the routing multiplexers 4045 and4050 are interconnect/storage elements in some embodiments.

As mentioned above, each LUT in some embodiments has a separate carrylogic circuit, while the LUT's in other embodiments share carry logiccircuits. Two carry chains can be defined in each tile group by defininga redundant set of carry logic data paths in the tile group. Forinstance, some embodiments establish a tile group with two carry logicchains by taking the arranged tile layout 3500 of FIG. 35 and adding asecond Manchester carry logic 3505.

FIG. 41 illustrates one such modified tile layout 4100. The tile layoutin this figure is similar to the tile layout in FIG. 35, except that thetile layout 4100 also includes (1) two Manchester carry logic chains4105F and 4105R (instead of one Manchester carry logic chain 3505), (2)two routing multiplexers 4045 and 4050 (instead of one routingmultiplexer 3510), and (3) two sets of carry in and out signals (insteadof one). The carry logic 4105F is used by the left-to-right carry chain4025, while the carry logic 4105R is used by the right-to-left carrychain 4030. In FIG. 41, the notation F and R are used to specify thesignals in the forward and reverse carry paths 4025 and 4030.

When the tile layout 4100 is used to perform an adder/subtractoroperation, its LUT's 4120-4135 receive data and carry inputs forperforming such an operation. When the forward carry chain 4025 is used,the data and carry signals flow through the LUT's 4120, 4125, 4130, andthen 4135. On the other hand, when the reverse carry chain 4030 is used,the data and carry signals flow through the LUT's 4135, 4130, 4125, andthen 4120. Accordingly, the LUT's and the inputs and outputs of thecircuits in FIG. 41 are labeled to show the identity of these signalsduring the forward and reverse carry flows.

The notations in FIG. 41 can be interpreted as follows. Tile layout 4100can be used to add two four-bit signals “a” and “b”, where this additionfactors in a four-bit carry signal “c”. Each of the signals “a”, “b”,and “c” has a bit 0, bit 1, bit 2, and bit 3. Each of the four LUT's4130-4130 always receives the same signal value in the forward andreverse flows through the LUT's. However, in the forward and reverseflows, the signal value received by each LUT is a different bit in theaddition operation.

For instance, LUT 4125 is labeled as IF and 2R to indicate that thiscircuit is LUT 1 in the left-to-right adder/subtractor implementation,while it is LUT 2 in the right-to-left adder/subtractor implementation.When the tile layout 4100 performs an addition operation in the forwardflow, the “a”, “b”, and “c” signals received by the LUT 4125 aredesignated as a_(1F), b_(1F), and c_(1F), to specify that these signalsare the second bits in the nibble-wide add operation performed by theLUT's of the tile layout 4100. Alternatively, when the tile layout 4100performs an addition operation in the reverse flow, the “a”, “b”, and“c” signals received by the LUT 4125 are designated as a_(2R), b_(2R)and c_(2R), to specify that these signals are the third bits in thenibble-wide add operation performed by the LUT's of the tile layout4100. Similarly, the propagate signal of LUT 4135 is labeled as P_(3F)and P_(0R) to indicate that (1) when acting as a left-to-rightadder/subtractor, the propagate signal of LUT 4135 is the thirdpropagate signal, while (2) when acting as a right-to-leftadder/subtractor, the propagate signal of LUT 4135 (which now is actingas LUT 0) is the first propagate signal.

As mentioned above, the routing multiplexers 4045 and 4050 areinterconnect/storage elements, like the interconnect/storage element2700 of FIG. 27. Similarly, in some embodiments, the routing multiplexer3510 of FIG. 35 is also an interconnect/storage element. Usinginterconnect/storage elements for routing multiplexers 3510, 4045, and4050 is beneficial in that it allows some embodiments to performdifferent portions of an adder/subtractor operation in differentsub-cycles.

For instance, to perform a thirty-two bit add operation, someembodiments can perform two sixteen bit add operations in two differentsub-cycles. To do this, these embodiments can latch the carry out signalor signals associated with the addition operations for the first set ofsixteen bits, in the interconnect/storage RMUX's (3510, 4045, or 4050)of the LUT's that perform the addition for the second set of sixteenbits, or some interconnect/storage RMUX's that are used to route thesignals. While performing the addition on the second set of sixteenbits, the IC of some embodiments can simply latch the result of theaddition operation on the first set of sixteen bits, or it can performadditional operations on this result in order to increase its throughputthrough pipelining.

IX. Memories Embedded in and Between the Tile Layouts

Configurable IC's typically include memory arrays for storing data usedby the configurable IC. Some embodiments embed memories in the tiles ofa configurable IC's tile arrangement. For example, FIG. 42 illustratesone manner of embedding a memory 4205 in the layout of the tile group4000 of FIG. 40. The memory 4200 is a 128-bit memory that can beaddressed by five address bits to read or write four bits of data at atime.

The tile layout 4200 of FIG. 42 is similar to the tile layout 4000 ofFIG. 40, except that the LUT's 4020 and carry chains 4025 and 4030 inthe layout 4000 are replaced with a memory 4200 in the layout 4200. Bothlayouts 4000 and 4200 have four sets of routing multiplexers 4010, foursets of input select multiplexers 4015, and four other routingmultiplexers 4035-4050.

Like the four three-input LUT's 4020 in FIG. 40, the memory 4205receives the twelve bits output from the twelve input selectmultiplexers 4015. However, in the layout 4200, (1) the output of theIMUX “2” in each tile and the output of the routing multiplexer 4045form a five-bit write-address bus of the memory 4205, (2) the output ofthe IMUX “1” in each tile and the output of the routing multiplexers4050 form a five-bit read-address bus of the memory 4205, and (3) theoutput of the IMUX “0” in each tile forms a four-bit input data bus.

The tile layout 4200 also has a four-bit output data bus that utilizesthe same four bit output data path that is used in the tile group 4000to output the four output bits of the four LUT's 4020. The tile layout4200 utilizes the output of the multiplexer 4040 as the write-enablesignal WE. This signal directs the memory 4205 to utilize the addressfrom the write-address bus to identify a location in the memory to writethe data on the data input bus. The tile layout 4200 utilizes the outputof the multiplexer 4035 as a chip select signal SEL. This signal eitherindicates that the memory is selected for operation, or is not selected,in which case the memory can operate in a reduced power mode.

FIG. 43 illustrates a physical layout for embedding the memory 4205 inan aligned tile group, which is formed by four tiles that are alignedwith each other in a manner similar to the aligned tile groups 3100 and4100 of FIGS. 31 and 41. The alignment illustrated in FIG. 43 has thememory 4205 placed in the middle of the four aligned tiles 4210, 4215,4220, and 4225, which were topologically illustrated in FIG. 42. In thisembedding, the memory array 4205 in the arrangement illustrated in FIG.43 takes the place of the LUT's 0-3 and shared carry logic circuits 4105in FIG. 41.

In some embodiments, the embedding illustrated in FIG. 43 does notdisrupt the routing fabric within the tiles that contain the memory4205. In these, the embedding illustrated in FIG. 43 does not utilizemany or any of the configurable routing multiplexers (that are part ofthe configurable routing fabric of the configurable IC) in the fourtiles illustrated in this figure. These unused routing multiplexers canthen be used as part of the configurable routing fabric that routessignals between the configurable logic circuits of the configurable IC.

In some architectures, the address and data signals for a memory cancome from several groups of tiles. FIG. 44 illustrates one sucharchitecture 4400. This is a dual-ported architecture that includes twomemory address/data ports 4410. Each memory port 4410 spans across twogroups of eight tiles. Each port has (1) a nine-bit read address bus,(2) a nine-bit write address bus, (3) a ten-bit input data bus, and (4)a ten-bit output data bus.

The nine-bit write address bus is formed by (1) the output of the IMUX“2” in each of the eight tiles spanned by the port, and (2) the outputof one of the routing multiplexers 4045 in the two groups. The nine-bitread address bus is formed by (1) the output of the IMUX “1” in each ofthe eight tile spanned by the port, and (2) the output of one of therouting multiplexers 4050 in the two groups.

The ten-bit data input bus is formed by (1) the output of the IMUX “0”in each of the eight tiles spanned by the port, and (2) the output of arouting multiplexer that correspond to the routing multiplexer in acomputational tile (i.e., a tile with a logic circuit) that provides thecarry in to the aligned tile layout. The ten-bit data output busincludes two sets of four bit lines that are each aligned with the fourbit output data path used in the tile group 4000 to output the fouroutput bits of the four LUT's 4020. The ten-bit data output bus alsoincludes two bit lines that are aligned with the carry-out signal lineof a tile group 4000 with four LUT's 4020 and associated carry logic.

These address and data lines of the dual ported architecture 4400 allowsimultaneous read and/or write operations to and/or from two differentlocations in a memory array, which stores 5120 bits in some embodiments.Also, in some embodiments, the two ports A and B of FIG. 44 can operateon two different clock domains. Specifically, some embodiments can drivethe circuits (e.g., the configurable routing and input-selectinterconnect circuits) of the two sets of tiles spanned by the two portsby two different clock signals, which potentially have different phasesand/or operate at different frequencies.

FIG. 45 illustrates one manner for establishing the dual-portedarchitecture 4400 of FIG. 44 in the tile architecture of someembodiments. Specifically, FIG. 45 illustrates a physical layout forembedding a memory 4500 between four aligned tile groups in the tilearchitecture of some embodiments. Each aligned tile group is formed byfour tiles that are aligned with each other in a manner similar to thealigned tile groups 3100 and 4100 of FIGS. 31 and 41.

The alignment illustrated in FIG. 45 has a memory 4500 placed betweentwo pairs of aligned tiles, with the top pair including tile groups 4505and 4510 and the bottom pair including tile groups 4515 and 4520. Thetop pair of tile groups 4505 and 4510 provide the address and datasignals for one port (e.g., port A) of the memory 4500, while the bottompair of tile groups 4515 and 4520 provide the address and data signalsfor another port (e.g., port B) of the memory 4500.

Unlike the embedding illustrated in FIG. 43, which simply takes theplace of the LUT's 0-3 and the shared carry logic circuits, theembedding in FIG. 45 is not within a tile layout. The embedding in FIG.45 also requires additional wiring to route the signals from themultiplexers of the top and bottom aligned tile groups to the memory4500. However, in some embodiments, the embedding illustrated in FIG. 45does not disrupt the routing fabric of the tiles that are on either sideof the memory 4500. In these embodiments, the embedding illustrated inFIG. 45 does not utilize many or any of the configurable routingmultiplexers (that are part of the configurable routing fabric of theconfigurable IC) in the sixteen tiles illustrated in this figure. Theseunused routing multiplexers can then be used as part of the configurablerouting fabric that routes signals between the configurable logiccircuits of the configurable IC.

X. Configurable IC and System

Some embodiments described above are implemented in configurable IC'sthat can compute configurable combinational digital logic functions onsignals that are presented on the inputs of the configurable IC's. Insome embodiments, such computations are state-less computations (i.e.,do not depend on a previous state of a value). Some embodimentsdescribed above are implemented in configurable IC's that can perform acontinuous function. In these embodiments, the configurable IC canreceive a continuous function at its input, and in response, provide acontinuous output at one of its outputs.

FIG. 46 illustrates a portion of a configurable IC 4600 of someembodiments of the invention. As shown in this figure, this IC 4600 hasa configurable circuit arrangement 4605 and I/O circuitry 4610. Theconfigurable circuit arrangement 4605 can be any of the invention'sconfigurable circuit arrangements that were described above. The I/Ocircuitry 4610 is responsible for routing data between the configurablenodes 4615 of the arrangement 4605 and circuits outside of thearrangement (i.e., circuits outside of the IC, or within the IC butoutside of the arrangement 4605). As further described below, such dataincludes data that needs to be processed or passed along by theconfigurable nodes.

The data also includes in some embodiments configuration data thatconfigure the nodes to perform particular operations. FIG. 47illustrates a more detailed example of this. Specifically, this figureillustrates a configuration data pool 4705 for the configurable IC 4600.This pool includes N configuration data sets (CDS). As shown in FIG. 47,the input/output circuitry 4610 of the configurable IC 4600 routesdifferent configuration data sets to different configurable nodes of theIC 4600. For instance, FIG. 47 illustrates configurable node 4745receiving configuration data sets 1, 3, and J through the I/O circuitry,while configurable node 4750 receives configuration data sets 3, K, andN−1 through the I/O circuitry. In some embodiments, the configurationdata sets are stored within each configurable node. Also, in someembodiments, a configurable node can store multiple configuration datasets so that it can reconfigure quickly by changing to anotherconfiguration data set. In some embodiments, some configurable nodesstore only one configuration data set, while other configurable nodesstore multiple such data sets.

A configurable IC of the invention can also include circuits other thana configurable circuit arrangement and I/O circuitry. For instance, FIG.48 illustrates a system on chip (“SoC”) implementation of a configurableIC 4800. This IC has a configurable block 4850, which includes aconfigurable circuit arrangement 4605 and I/O circuitry 4610 for thisarrangement. It also includes a processor 4815 outside of theconfigurable circuit arrangement, a memory 4820, and a bus 4810, whichconceptually represents all conductive paths between the processor 4815,memory 4820, and the configurable block 4850. As shown in FIG. 48, theIC 4800 couples to a bus 4830, which communicatively couples the IC toother circuits, such as an off-chip memory 4825. Bus 4830 conceptuallyrepresents all conductive paths between the components of the IC 4800.

This processor 4815 can read and write instructions and/or data from anon-chip memory 4820 or an offchip memory 4825. The processor 4815 canalso communicate with the configurable block 4850 through memory 4820and/or 4825 through buses 4810 and/or 4830. Similarly, the configurableblock can retrieve data from and supply data to memories 4820 and 4825through buses 4810 and 4830.

Instead of, or in conjunction with, the system on chip (“SoC”)implementation for a configurable IC, some embodiments might employ aprogrammable system in package (“PSiP”) implementation for aconfigurable IC. FIG. 49 illustrates one such SiP 4900. As shown in thisfigure, SiP 4900 includes four IC's 4920, 4925, 4930, and 4935 that arestacked on top of each other on a substrate 4905. At least one of theseIC's is a configurable IC that includes a configurable block, such asthe configurable block 4850 of FIG. 48. Other IC's might be othercircuits, such as processors, memory, etc.

As shown in FIG. 49, the IC communicatively connects to the substrate4905 (e.g., through wire bondings 4960). These wire bondings allow theIC's 4920-4935 to communicate with each other without having to gooutside of the PSiP 4900. In some embodiments, the IC's 4920-4935 mightbe directly wire-bonded to each other in order to facilitatecommunication between these IC's. Instead of, or in conjunction with thewire bondings, some embodiments might use other mechanisms tocommunicatively couple the IC's 4920-4935 to each other.

As further shown in FIG. 49, the PSiP includes a ball grid array (“BGA”)4910 and a set of vias 4915. The BGA 4910 is a set of solder balls thatallows the PSiP 4900 to be attached to a printed circuit board (“PCB”).Each via connects a solder ball in the BGA 4910 on the bottom of thesubstrate 4905, to a conductor on the top of the substrate 4905.

The conductors on the top of the substrate 4905 are electrically coupledto the IC's 4920-4935 through the wire bondings 4960. Accordingly, theIC's 4920-4935 can send and receive signals to and from circuits outsideof the PSiP 4900 through the wire bondings, the conductors on the top ofthe substrate 4905, the set of vias 4915, and the BGA 4910. Instead of aBGA, other embodiments might employ other structures (e.g., a pin gridarray) to connect a PSiP to circuits outside of the PSiP. As shown inFIG. 49, a housing 4980 encapsulates the substrate 4905, the BGA 4910,the set of vias 4915, the IC's 4920-4935, and the wire bondings, to formthe PSiP 4900. This and other PSiP structures are further described inU.S. patent application entitled “Programmable System in Package”, filedconcurrently herewith attorney docket number TBUL.P0030.

FIG. 50 conceptually illustrates a more detailed example of a computingsystem 5000 that has an IC 5005, which includes one of the invention'sconfigurable circuit arrangements that were described above. The system5000 can be a stand-alone computing or communication device, or it canbe part of another electronic device. As shown in FIG. 50, the system5000 not only includes the IC 5005, but also includes a bus 5010, asystem memory 5015, a read-only memory 5020, a storage device 5025,input devices 5030, output devices 5035, and communication interface5040.

The bus 5010 collectively represents all system, peripheral, and chipsetinterconnects (including bus and non-bus interconnect structures) thatcommunicatively connect the numerous internal devices of the system5000. For instance, the bus 5010 communicatively connects the IC 5015with the read-only memory 5020, the system memory 5015, and thepermanent storage device 5025.

From these various memory units, the IC 5005 receives data forprocessing and configuration data for configuring the IC's configurablelogic and/or interconnect circuits. When the IC 5005 has a processor,the IC also retrieves from the various memory units instructions toexecute. The read-only-memory (ROM) 5020 stores static data andinstructions that are needed by the IC 5010 and other modules of thesystem 5000. The storage device 5025, on the other hand, is aread-and-write memory device. This device is a non-volatile memory unitthat stores instruction and/or data even when the system 5000 is off.Like the storage device 5025, the system memory 5015 is a read-and-writememory device. However, unlike the storage device 5025, the systemmemory is a volatile read-and-write memory, such as a random accessmemory. The system memory stores some of the instructions and/or datathat the IC needs at runtime.

The bus 5010 also connects to the input and output devices 5030 and5035. The input devices 5030 enable the user to enter information intothe system 5000. The input devices 5030 can include touch-sensitivescreens, keys, buttons, keyboards, cursor-controllers, microphone, etc.The output devices 5035 display the output of the system 5000.

Finally, as shown in FIG. 50, the bus 5010 also couples the system 5000to other devices through the communication interface 5040. Examples ofthe communication interface 5040 include network adapters that connectto a network of computers, or wired or wireless transceivers forcommunicating with other devices. One of ordinary skill in the art wouldappreciate that any other system configuration may also be used inconjunction with the invention, and these system configurations mighthave fewer or additional components.

While the invention has been described with reference to numerousspecific details, one of ordinary skill in the art will recognize thatthe invention can be embodied in other specific forms without departingfrom the spirit of the invention. For example, although numerousembodiments were described by reference to flat tile architectures, oneof ordinary skill will realize that these embodiments could beimplemented in other configurable IC architectures.

Also, in some embodiments, the position of many circuits (e.g., ofrouting and input-select interconnects in aligned tile layouts) aretopologically illustrated in the figures. The actual physical locationof these circuits may be different in different embodiments. Forinstance, in a computation aligned tile layout that has logic circuitsand routing and input-select interconnects, some embodiments position(1) the logic circuits in the center of the aligned tile layout, (2) theinput-select interconnects above, below, to the right, and to the leftof the centrally located logic circuits, and (3) the routinginterconnects in the remaining corner areas of the aligned tile layoutwith other circuits.

Many embodiments described above include input select interconnects forthe logic circuits. Other embodiments, however, might not use suchinterconnects. Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would understandthat the invention is not to be limited by the foregoing illustrativedetails, but rather is to be defined by the appended claims.

1-16. (canceled)
 17. An electronic device comprising: a configurableintegrated circuit (“IC”) comprising: a) a plurality of configurabletiles arranged in a tile arrangement, b) each configurable tile having aset of configurable logic circuits and a set of configurable routingcircuits for routing signals between configurable logic circuits; c)wherein at least a first routing circuit of a first tile has a directconnection with a second routing circuit of a second tile that is notaligned horizontally or vertically with the first tile in the tilearrangement, and through the direct connection, the first routingcircuit provides an input signal to the second routing circuit; and d)wherein the second routing circuit comprises a first input and a secondinput, wherein the first input is coupled to the direct connection, andwherein the second input is for receiving signals from within saidsecond tile.
 18. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein a pluralityof routing circuits of the first tile have at least one directconnection with at least one circuit of another tile that does notneighbor the first tile and that is not aligned horizontally orvertically with the first tile in the tile arrangement.
 19. Theelectronic device of claim 17, wherein the IC further comprises: a thirdtile, wherein a third routing circuit of said third tile has a seconddirect connection to said second routing circuit; and wherein the secondrouting circuit further comprises a third input for receiving signalsthrough said second direct connection.
 20. The electronic device ofclaim 17, wherein the IC further comprises: a third tile, wherein athird routing circuit of said third tile has a second direct connectionto said second routing circuit; and wherein the second routing circuitfurther comprises an output for sending signals through said seconddirect connection.
 21. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein thesecond tile does not neighbor the first tile.
 22. The electronic deviceof claim 17, wherein the direct connection does not include anyintervening circuits.
 23. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein thedirect connection includes a set of wire segments and a set of vias. 24.The electronic device of claim 17, wherein each of a plurality ofrouting circuits of each particular tile in a set of tiles has at leastone direct connection with at least one other circuit of another tilethat does not neighbor the particular tile and that is not alignedhorizontally or vertically with the particular tile in the tilearrangement.
 25. A configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) comprising: aplurality of configurable tiles arranged in a tile arrangement, eachconfigurable tile having a set of configurable logic circuits and a setof configurable routing circuits for routing signals betweenconfigurable logic circuits; wherein at least a first routing circuit ofa first tile has a direct connection with a second routing circuit of asecond tile that is not aligned horizontally or vertically with thefirst tile in the tile arrangement, and through the direct connection,the first routing circuit provides an input signal to the second routingcircuit; and wherein the second routing circuit comprises a first inputand a second input, wherein the first input is coupled to the directconnection, and wherein the second input is for receiving signals fromwithin said second tile.
 26. The configurable integrated circuit (“IC”)of claim 25, further comprising: a third tile, wherein a third routingcircuit of said third tile has a second direct connection to said secondrouting circuit; and wherein the second routing circuit furthercomprises a third input for receiving signals through said second directconnection.
 27. The configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) of claim 25,further comprising: a third tile, wherein a third routing circuit ofsaid third tile has a second direct connection to said second routingcircuit; and wherein the second routing circuit further comprises anoutput for sending signals through said second direct connection. 28.The configurable IC of claim 25, wherein a plurality of routing circuitsof the first tile have at least one direct connection with at least onecircuit of another tile that does not neighbor the first tile in thetile arrangement and that is not aligned horizontally or vertically withthe first tile in the tile arrangement.
 29. The configurable IC of claim25, wherein each of a plurality of routing circuits of each particulartile in a set of tiles has at least one direct connection with at leastone other circuit of another tile that does not neighbor the particulartile and that is not aligned horizontally or vertically with theparticular tile in the tile arrangement.
 30. The configurable IC ofclaim 25, wherein the direct connection does not include any interveningcircuits.
 31. The configurable IC of claim 25, wherein the directconnection includes a set of wire segments and a set of vias.
 32. Theconfigurable IC of claim 25, wherein the second tile does not neighborthe first tile.